


Pride and Purity

by Wonkington



Category: Original Work, Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: 1990s, Adaptation, Alternate Universe - 1990s, But Jesus isn't the bad guy, Christianity, Comedy, Discussion of Abortion, Disney World & Disneyland, Emotionally stunted Fitzwilliam Darcy, Evangelical Christianity, F/M, M/M, Modern Era, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rich white people, Romantic Comedy, Washington, purity culture, questioning faith
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 53,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonkington/pseuds/Wonkington
Summary: For the past several years, Becca Bailey has climbed the altar in front of her church on Purity Sunday and, alongside her sisters, pledged her virginity to God. It's a humiliation she's grown used to, made much easier by an excellent Purity Buffet, and maybe by the fact that her virginity has always been pretty easy to keep safe, anyway.Then one Purity Sunday, in walks the proud, conceited, and very attractive William Percy, and everything she's thought--about her faith, about her family, and about her so-called purity--changes completely.**Story completed with regular updates**
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet/George Wickham, Fitzwilliam Darcy & George Wickham, Jane Bennet/Charles Bingley, Lydia Bennet/George Wickham
Comments: 36
Kudos: 67





	1. Purity Sunday

**Author's Note:**

> If you clicked on this: thank you for taking a chance on it. This story is finished, and, all told, was quite therepeutic to write. Needless to say, this story highlights the complexities and hypocracies of American Evangelical Purity Culture (edit: some of--every church is unique) with a knowing wink. It also includes a small amount of era- and setting-appropriate "political incorrectness", though this has been kept to a minumum. If you find this upsetting or triggering, this will not be the story for you.
> 
> Current plans are to update every Tuesday and Saturday, though that might vary due to work, etc. Hope you enjoy. *tips hat*

**Belleport, Washington**

**1997**

**CHAPTER ONE**  
  


Everyone knows that a good, single Christian boy in possession of a Lexus has no intention of staying single for long.

And for such a young man to show up suddenly on Purity Sunday? Well, he might as well have brought a ring.

We at New Hope Church of Christ were no strangers to strangers. They often showed up on Sunday mornings, sporting receding hairlines and high school class rings too small for their beer-bloated fingers. They were church-family-friends, usually--a son of a golf buddy, a youngish co-worker, a brother in Christ from an inter-church men's retreat. Single, all of them. They'd been told promises over beers and football about the eligible young women at New Hope and how we'd make good Christian wives. Finally, they'd come along one service to see for themselves. Ever since That Article in _The Belleport Sun_ two years ago, this was the service they favored.

_That Article_ is still pinned to the church notice board, even though it's starting to curl and fade. We were the feature, and from the photo, it's easy to see why: I'm in the background, blurry and brown-haired, link-armed with Celia Hernandez and laughing; Cynthia is proud to point out her nose, which nudged into the frame just an inch--and finally, the star: my sister Julie. Then just eighteen, sunlit on an unseasonably cold morning in late May, the outline of her nipples just visible in the pale lace bodice of her dress.

Politely, no one brought up the nipples, and neither did Julie, though she started avoiding the bathroom across from the bulletin board until I threw the article into the trash with the sanitary napkins and adult diapers. An hour later, Mom had fished it out and put it back in pride of place.

And two years later, the men still came.

"Gag me," Cynthia complained as we walked into church that morning in our white dresses. There were thirteen pews and years of societal expectation between the back doors and our traditional Sunday seats. I counted three unfamiliar backs of male heads--and after eighteen years at this church, I knew the back of everyone's head extremely well, from curls to bald spots to Farah Fawcetts to 80s-era perms.

Cynthia wasn't finished. "Becca, I am _actually_ going to die."

"Shush, Cynthia." Please may it be put to the record that I did not disagree with my younger sister. On the contrary, Cynthia was always, I think, my _id_ ; if I had a single ounce of her courage, I would have got up in front of everyone that same morning and told the church, for once, exactly what I thought. I envied Cynthia, really. But I was her older sister, and therefore her keeper, given the specific task by our mother. Everyone in the family—church or blood—knew what she’d say as soon as she walked in. But Cynthia missing Purity Sunday? Suspicious. Tongues would wag from Belleport to the Puget Sound.

"It's true," whispered Cynthia spitefully. "Bunch of pedos."

I guided Cynthia to our pew and bundled her in so tightly next to Julie that she wouldn't be able to turn around without snapping her neck.

We all know Cynthia was right. I could feel the suitors’ eyes on us. It was like I was being mentally poked and assessed for freshness.

"Sneering will give you wrinkles," Mom said, collapsing beside me. She was wheezing softly.

"I certainly hope so," I replied. “If one thing will scare these guys off, it’s an aging female.”

Mom pretended not to hear me. She was staring at Worship Pastor Steve, who was tuning a string on his guitar. Above our heads, the soft rain pitter-pattered on the roof and whiskery trees slipped fingers across the stained glass doves, palms, and angels. The air heaved with the scent of fresh lilies, which always made our mother's head ache. The congregation hummed with its usual swell of excited whispers.

Yes, Cynthia was right. The creeps were here; we were all in white; it was my least favorite morning of the year and hopefully (please, God) my last Purity Sunday, just like that fateful day was for Julie two years ago. She no longer joined us, and instead got to wear Virgin Mary Blue and sit in the pews while we took our vows. If you cared to ask, anyone would tell you that Julie was one thousand percent a better person than I was; she would have been sitting here in white along with us if that was what Mom had wanted. But it was Mom had who taken pity on her, and put both hands each side of Julie's lovely face the morning her nipples starred in the Monday newspaper, and said, "Nineteen is too old, anyway, sweetie. It will make you look desperate."

Even in blue, I could tell Julie was humming with that same pure hope with which she had always attended Purity Sunday. A part of her—much more patient and hopeful than any part of me--was waiting for someone to sweep through the double doors at the back of the church, young and bright and happy and beautiful, and take her up in his arms and propose marriage on the spot.

But they weren't here. Tomorrow, one of us _virtuous virgins_ would be partnered off to one of these men. The rest of the eligible bachelors would be not-rich-enough-for-our-mothers and would disappear, and this would fade into memories until I was only a blurry outline in the back of a photo of my sister's perfect breasts.

"Good morning," Pastor Frances said, bending into the mic.

"Good morning," we replied.

Then: a slam.

A cough.

And an, "Oh no, I'm so sorry."

I stiffened. I wasn't the only one--Cynthia knelt on my hand as she turned in the pew. Julie looked at her lap. Then I grabbed a hold of my sister's shoulder and stared along with everyone else.

They were strangers.

But they were _young_ ones.

There they stood, framed in the big double doors like the second coming. Mercer Islanders. We knew it right away. Rich, obviously. They wore chinos, not shorts, and button-down shirts like they lived in them and didn't save them just for Sundays. One was tall, slouching, and looked to be what a certain subset of the church would describe (kindly, they thought) as "ethnic"--that was to say, of a complexion browner than the traditional New Hope white (or Cabana Hut $10-tan). With his hands in his pockets, he looked like he wanted to slink right back through the doors. The short blond boy at his side, however, was smiling and waving at us.

Cynthia elbowed me hard in the side. "Boys!" she whispered so loudly that anyone within eight pews would hear her.

Cynthia, however, was wrong. They weren't only boys. Shortly following the two young men was a girl about our age, perhaps a bit younger, wearing wedges and a pink dress too short for church. Her two-tone brown hair was styled in a perfect replica of The Rachel from _Friends_ , and fastened behind her ear with a pink plastic barrette.

"Welcome!" Pastor Frances's voice made our guests jump. "Great to see new blood. Cup a squat."

There was a collective, bristling silence of disapproval from our mothers--always a single entity in church on Sundays with their daughters and sons dressed in white--at Pastor Frances's ineloquent use of slang. But these bright, polished people shimmied into the back pew regardless, three different shades of red shadowing their faces, either from embarrassment or a brief glimpse of sun sliding through the stained glass.

"Oh my G-O-D." Cynthia thought that if she spelled it, it wasn't blasphemy. "FINALLY."

Next to her, Julie turned to watch rain drops slide down a stained glass lily, her cheeks rose-pink, her arms crossed over her chest.

This time, I did not agree with Cynthia. All I could think of was the DJ warming up in the basement rooms. All we'd need now were some dance cards for all the eligible young ladies. Maybe a maypole to spin around so we could display our best assets while twirling. My mother standing on the side-lines with a tissue in hand, calling at us over the music to skip higher so that our bosoms would be displayed to their best advantage, in the best slant of light.

I did not feel relief. Only a lump in my throat, and a twisting, tightening knot of dread deep in my stomach. This entire day was ridiculous. _We_ were ridiculous. And now we had more witnesses.

_They're nothing_ , I told myself. _Just a younger model of the men who've come for the past two years_.

But something about them--the shyness, the waving, the girl at their side--made me think they hadn't the slightest idea what was going on.

And that made it so much worse.

"Today..." At the altar Pastor Frances grinned at us, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, sunburned arms shining angrily. "...as you might be able to tell, honored guests, is Purity Sunday."

I cringed. Surely now the penny had dropped. Surely they would realize their mistake and back-step through the doors.

But no one made a move. Beside me, Cynthia slipped further down into the pew, her frilly white dress riding up her legs, the crotch of her white tights stretched between her thighs like a toddler's diaper. My heart was still beating in my throat. I could feel _them_ watching us, assessing everything, judging us. I felt like I was being studied by scientists. I never invited school friends to church, despite Pastor Frances and Pastor Steve always telling us it would build up treasure in heaven. My school friends didn't understand. They didn't grow up in it. They went to normal churches where the pastors wore dresses and swung smoking lanterns on chains. Their mothers took them to Planned Parenthood for the Pill instead of blushing when they asked for sanitary pads and discreetly handing over a five dollar bill from their dads' wallets. They applied to university and actually planned on going, instead of side-lining it in favor of a future of early marriage and six kids.

If anyone asked me in earnest for my thoughts and feelings about my church, I would answer delicately, but truthfully: it was, perhaps, _not for me_. But after eighteen years of Sundays and Wednesdays and summer camps, I was also numbed to it. So despite my misgivings, I wasn't usually so laser-aware of my surroundings and all of its failings, nor is my judgement of my beloved family so harsh...truly, reader; you can question many thing about me, but do not question my love for my family. But in the minutes after these strangers arrived, my misgivings had turned torturous. I was seeing my surroundings with their eyes. Our dresses were blinding white. Our music was too loud. During worship, our hands were too high and the guitars too distorted. Our Bible readings were too pointed, and the analysis, as they'd say in AP Lang, full of "hasty generalizations" coupled with "false causality." Julie threw me shy, questioning looks as I self-consciously lifted my hands into T-rex stance during the songs. When I snorted during the prayers--when Pastor Steve asked for God's healing hands on Mrs. Whitman's dandruff--she tapped me hard on the thigh with her little finger, too gentle to do anything that hurt.

But I wasn't the only one hyper-aware of our guests.

We all watched them go up to communion. I locked eyes with my friend Celia across the aisle. We greeted each other with raised eyebrows, then went back to studying the intruders. They were just as wealthy-looking closer up. We could see expensive logos on shirts. The smaller one wore cuff links. My mother was practically lying over Cynthia's lap, whispering loudly enough for the entire street to hear: " _Will they take the wafer, though? Watch them, girls, watch them!_ " And we obeyed her, watching the tall boy, the short boy, and the short-dressed girl climb the steps to the railing and kneel.

Palms out.

" _Yes!"_ my mother hissed, and Cynthia slumped and groaned, instantly bored. They'd passed the test. Not only had they come to church, but they'd taken the bread. The eligible young men (never mind the girl--she didn't matter) were official capital-C Christians, and therefore officially worthy of her daughters.

Then communion was over. Too soon--far, _far_ too soon--it was time for our Pledge. I kept looking at my mother, waiting for her to break and let me free, but she didn't budge. If anything, the strangers' arrival had cemented her position. At just-eighteen, the Pledge made me more valuable. Untouched goods.

I'd tried the same line on my mother that she'd used on Julie.

"Don't you think it would make me look desperate?" I'd asked her several times since Christmas, as Purity Sunday began to loom near. "Don't you think I'm too old for it?"

"Oh, intending on sleeping with boys, are you?" she'd replied, with a bluntness that was unlike her. In the baseball-bases analogy, my mother became uncomfortable with any act further than the batter striking out and his teammate giving him a high-five for effort.

(It was amazing that she could survive Purity Sunday, but I supposed sex was fine as long as we were basking in its absence).

"What?" I had blinked at her directness, taken aback. Did I ever seem like someone who would sleep with boys? Everyone at church and youth group acted like sex was something that was so difficult to avoid. I’d found the opposite. I had never needed to _practice_ chastity. Any boy attracted by my looks was scared off by--as my Mom always said--my "forceful personality." No, chastity came naturally to me, the way water flowed to the ocean--an inevitable force of nature, whether I welcomed it or not.

"No," I assured her.

"Good." My mother smiled, her adult braces (which always made her head ache and her jaw sore) shining in the overhead spotlights of our kitchen. "So there's no harm in it."

"But--"

" _Think of your sister!_ " she lisped, and above our heads in the upstairs bedrooms, there was a _thunk_ and a mad laugh. Cynthia had fallen out of bed while on the phone again.

'Be. An. Example," Mom demanded of me, face going red with the exertion of her feelings, wires threatening to snap. "For _Cyn-thi-a_."

_For Cynthia_. It was the only thing that kept me standing at the altar in my white dress, white shoes, clasping a lily in my left hand. At my side, my youngest sister lolled into herself, slouching and playing with her own flower like it was a magic wand. Sometimes--no, most of the time--it was nearly impossible to remember that she was sixteen. Even worse was that some indulgent examiner at the DMV had just given her a driver's license. Even Mom refused to get into the car with her.

"Hands up, kids," Pastor Frances said to us. He stood ramrod straight in front of us, holding the Bible like he was trying to exorcise indecent thoughts from our brains. Still, his smile was genuine. Even as I grew older and my hesitance over the Pledge grew, I appreciated that Pastor Frances--for his many other faults--held no truck with the boys, unlike how they did at some of the other churches in our Fellowship. They were right up there with us, in their even more uncomfortable clothes, hands up like they were taking an oath of office. There were no excuses, no _boys will be boys_. We were all equals in our humiliation.

(Though I never saw any sweaty, thirty-year-old single women show up on Purity Sunday, did I?)

Pastor Frances began. I blushed. _Blushed_. I could have said something—taken the mic and shouted something that would make my mother gasp, then dropped it and run out of the room. Instead, I only stood there, silent except for speaking the words that had been written for us. I felt myself glowing with embarrassment as we took our pledge, promising ourselves to God and our future spouses. I felt _shame_ , and yet I had always told myself I didn't care what other people thought of me. I sat behind the driver on the school bus all the way through tenth grade because I wanted to read and sitting further back made me car sick. I wore dresses almost every day because they were more comfortable than jeans, even if the other kids thought I was Amish.

I never, _ever_ cared. The Pledge was nothing to me. I did it to make my mother happy, and the day after the Pledge was much like the day before.

And yet, this year, here I was. Mortified. And I refused to admit it but it was true: it was because I was being watched by two young men: one curious and enraptured, one thunderous, clearly condemning every one of us to low, ignorant society--the scum on the bottom of his loafers.

"This I pledge," we said together, and Cynthia goosed my left boob.

I sighed as the room erupted in applause and the clicking of disposable cameras.

And I knew, with sudden clarity, that I would remain a virgin until the day I died.


	2. The Purity Ball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading and for your comments thus far.

CHAPTER TWO

As soon as Pastor Frances ended the service with an "amen," my mother descended on the new arrivals before anyone else could reach them.

I hadn’t seen such activity since the grand opening of Belleport’s Olive Garden. I hung on the fringes, still uneasy over the visitors as a whole and suspicious of their showing up on Purity Sunday, even with the girl. Yet I didn’t want to stray far; the other—older--men still haunted the reaches of my vision, hovering, refusing to leave.

"Have you met my girls?" Mom said to the young men, bracing herself on a pew she'd nearly tripped over in her haste. "This is Julie, my oldest. Doesn't that pale blue look nice against her tan? You'd struggle to find someone so good-looking in Seattle, I think. And this," she waved at me, "is my second, Becca. Don't let the look on her face fool you; she’s not as much of a snob as she would have you think. And my youngest" --my mother paused, waving dismissively at Cynthia, who, with Hezekiah Butland, was balancing a church bulletin on her nose-- "is Cynthia."

The shorter man bent forward to shake Julie's hand. He was surfer-tan, with blond hair and dimples and very straight, white teeth. "I'm Charlie. It's so nice to meet you!" he enthused, and his enthusiasm seemed genuine. He was a bit older than me—nineteen or twenty--though much younger than the usual Purity Sunday bachelor, with the thin, somewhat malnourished look of a college freshman. Still, he was good-looking, with a well-built bone structure that spoke of attractive parents. His greeting of me was with less vigor, and he waved to Cynthia, but his attention soon returned to Julie, which was something I had grown used to over the past eighteen years. It wasn't as though she didn't deserve it. She was as sweet as she was beautiful, and had never dated anyone--not that she didn't want to, but because, she told me, "I'm too young, and it's more than likely that someone's heart will be broken at the end of it. I wouldn't want it to be his."

Now that she was twenty, she could no longer say she was too young (at least, not as our mother would have it), and it was likely apparent to no one but me that she was _sublimely_ interested in this young man who had as of yet forgotten to introduce his male friend and the young woman standing at an awkward distance behind him. At first, given their proximity and the fact that they were here, together, at a church that does not necessarily encourage male-female relationships that don't lead to marriage and children, I had assumed that this girl must be the girlfriend of one of them, and (I blame my mother) I had worried she had been attached to the taller one. But his cool disinterest and her habit of crossing her arms across her chest and pushing one toe into the instep of her foot spoke of mutual discomfort. If they were together, it wasn't going well.

"I'm being rude, aren't I?" said Charlie, who, judging by his reluctance to stop telling Julie facts about roses, was quickly and deeply falling in love with her. He waved at his companions, who approached. "This is Carolina, and this is Percy."

Carolina gave us all a perfunctory smile that disappeared immediately. Percy--the dark complexioned one who had slouched into church like he wanted to moonwalk right back out again--only inclined his head, as if words were beneath him. I had always been acquainted with the relatively well-off--despite Mom's rumblings, we were not destitute, and many of Dad's friends were Very Important People in tech and airplanes--but most people I knew, including the church-pervs, had at least been able to buy manners. But this Percy obviously had no need to. He wanted nothing from us, and it was apparent from his well-proportioned face.

I had never met someone before who so obviously thought the current company was beneath him. It was only normal--no, _natural--_ to despise him immediately.

Charlie was better company.

My mother, of course, wasted no time, asking Charlie and Carolina, "Are you two dating?"

Charlie made an amused face of disgust. "I would if I could," he said, laughing. His laugh faded while the girl looked at him, horrified. "But she's my sister." His face then paled. "No, I wouldn't. I was joking. I mean, she's my sister. That would be wrong, and pretty disgusting. No offence, Carolina."

"Shut. Up. Charlie," the girl said through her teeth.

"Charlie," Percy growled. His voice was deep and he had an accent I couldn't place. I found it unsettling, and slightly disappointing. His appearance was so brooding and so silently demanding that I'd hoped for a voice that sounded like Mickey Mouse, if only so I'd have something to laugh at later. Unfortunately, the pitch matched his stature: large, imposing, and far too serious. From a distance I'd found him good-looking, with his height, his spare frame, his dark, waving hair, and a strong but elegant jawline; now, close up, I could easily say that he was not as handsome as I'd thought. His head was rectangular to the point where you could use it to fill a gap in a brick wall. He was too polished, too careful. I had a mistrust of anyone who devoted so much time to self-care when they could be thinking of more important things...like...philosophy. And physics. And good manners.

Charlie, for his part, flicked a hand at his friend and said to my sister, "My mother developed this really interesting strand. When it starts to fade, it develops this white blush along the tips of the petals..."

 _"Charlie,"_ Percy urged him.

"Charlie," my mother butted in, pushing my sister gently aside, "I believe your friend wants to ask you if you're staying for the dance?"

"Dance?" Charlie said. Any remaining strands of suspicion instantly broke--if they had come because of That Newspaper Article, they would have known well of the dance and the dancing, nipply bosoms contained within. Perhaps it was entirely a coincidence that they had shown up today of all days.

"Dance?" Percy echoed, while Carolina gave a small, almost imperceptible moan.

"I like dancing," Charlie said with an amiable shrug.

Unnoticed to all but me, stars appeared in Julie's pale blue eyes.

"Of course we'll stay," Charlie said.

Carolina cut in. "Or maybe we'll go get lunch."

"Don't be silly," Charles admonished her. That word struck me: _silly_. Any other brother--or sister, for that matter (except for Julie, of course)--would have used a host of other words-- _stupid, an idiot, a moron_ , and yet this young man had chosen _silly_. What _was_ this man? His cheerful attitude seemed genuine, but at the same time, for Julie's benefit, as though he knew right away that she would respond to kindness above all. And he was right; the subtle sparkle in Julie's eyes grew even sparklier, while Charlie's polite grin widened. "We'd love to join you, Mrs...?"

"Just call me Barb," Mom said. "And no need for lunch out when there’s already a buffet waiting downstairs."

Percy and Carolina exchanged dark, secretive glances. I felt myself burning up again. I'd been right that he was judging us. Dead on the nose.

"I'm afraid I've left my daughter at home," Percy said, and a hot shiver of surprise rocked through me.

" _Daughter?_ " Mom replied.

"Percy's joking," Charlie said, turning a red to match mine. "He's implying this is a father-daughter dance." His expression turned hesitant. " _Is_ this a father-daughter dance?"

It was my mother's turn to flush at that question. It had been, the first year of the Purity Pledge, and the father-daughter slow dancing had followed our most awkward Pledge yet, where our fathers had lined up behind us like physical guardians of our virginity. I’d heard alarming rumors that Heather Boyd’s dad had brought a shotgun in the trunk of their car, so that he might stand behind her like a bodyguard for a tin pot dictator, but Heather had begged him not to bring it inside.

It had also been the same time my own father stopped coming to church. The jury was still out on whether the two were related, as both Mom and Dad refused to talk about it.

"No," Mom said a little stonily, shooting a dark-eyed look at Percy. "It is a normal dance."

"With waltzing!" interrupted Cynthia.

"Oh, good." Carolina's voice absolutely _oozed_. The thought that she and Charlie were related was baffling. "I love a good waltz, don't you, Percy?"

"Not really," he replied.

The lights flashed. Pastor Frances's voice came over the speakers. "The ball is beginning, the ball is beginning. Please make your way to the basement. Please make your way to the basement."

It was like a disaster-response recording, urging us to the emergency exits. I clung to Julie, borrowing her from Charlie's attentions for a few minutes; I could tell she was displeased with me for doing so, but she'd never say it out loud.

"What's with him?" I whispered, watching Percy's dark head bob down the stairs ahead of us.

"I know, isn't he _wonderful_?" sighed Julie. Her heavy, white-blond hair was slipping from its pins, falling in pretty curls across the nape of her neck. Her cheeks were flushed--not tomato-bright, like mine, but with pretty pinches of pink below her blue eyes. In everything she did, Julie was beautiful. I'd say she didn't even know it, but it must have been impossible to look in the mirror every day and think she was anything but stunning. It was only to her credit that she didn't feel the need to remind anyone of her beauty, but instead would wait to bloom under their compliments and attention likes an opening, blush-tipped rose.

"I mean Percy," I said.

Julie blinked at me. "Who?"

I patted her arm and gave her a gentle push forward, where Charlie had craned his neck around, looking for us.

I found Celia and she immediately filled me in.

"Charles and Carolina Green," she said of Charlie and his sister, with a subtle incline of her head. Celia was a repository of all information one could ever want to know of their surroundings. She got it from her mom--one of the biggest gossips in church--but was much more careful about what information she passed on. I was always her first port of call. "You've heard of Green's Garden Nurseries?” I had. We often got their catalogues in the mail. “Their mom owns it. Loaded, apparently. Though she grew up here. That's why they've come--they're visiting her old church."

"What about the other one?" I asked.

"William Percy," she said carefully. "You know the Emerald-on-Sea?"

I blinked. Did I? My parents had honeymooned there, back when they were young and relatively poor but still rich enough to afford the honeymoon suite at the private island resort in the Sound...which is to say, not nearly as poor as Mom always pretended to be. I'd never been there, but I'd seen enough photos and heard enough about it to know that it was huge, richly appointed, and very exclusive.

"Yes," I said. "Don't tell me his parents own it."

"Not just _it_ ," Celia whispered. " _Them_. It's an entire chain, apparently. His mom was in _US Weekly_. She was some sort of Middle Eastern princess or heiress or whatever before she got married. They're Canadian, but they live in Seattle, now."

So this was the man who would someday own it all. The man who'd touched the stair banister, then wiped his hand on his trousers.

"I thought Canadians were meant to be nice," I said, frowning down at him.

"Maybe it skips generations," Celia replied.

I sighed. "I guess money can't buy happiness."

"Don't tell our mothers that," Celia said. She took my arm--we had landed in the basement. The music was already blaring and a handful of little kids in church dress were hula-hooping on the squeaky gym-plank dance floor.

"I’m not sure we should tell our mothers anything," I said, taking Celia's hand and pulling her into the function room past a frowning Carolina and Percy. "It doesn't matter. Let's dance."

#

For all our philosophical differences, I would never argue with the fact that the members of the non-denominational New Hope Church of Christ knew how to throw an excellent party.

Of course, there were the oddities--the departures from what normal society would consider "excellent." No alcohol, of course--a rule my mother was trying to change with repeated suggestions at every church council meeting and bribes of her homemade boysenberry wine. Instead, we made do with punch with drifting clouds of rainbow sherbet, and bags and bags of Capri Sun.

Early Sunday afternoons may also be considered an unusual hour for entertaining by most people (and apparently our more...mature...guests, as the older bachelors had fortunately made their exit after the service, most likely with poor girls’ phone numbers clutched in their sweaty hands), but the sun had broken through cloud and into the high basement windows, the buffet table was groaning beneath casserole dishes and an entire hen house of deviled eggs, and Gary at the sound system owned all the good CDs. Fact was, I'd been to worse, and those were meant to have been the "good" Christian parties.

And I _really_ loved to dance.

We did everything once sneered at by my School Dance Committee, the one time I'd tried to join them Freshman year: the samba, the Macarena, the waltz, cha-cha, Charleston, conga. Did Percy join in on any of them? I'll give you one guess.

I wasn't sure why it bothered me, but it did. Every glimpse I had of him standing on the side with his arms crossed made my blood simmer, and, for some equally odd reason, made me want to laugh all the harder, to prove I was having fun, and to prove to him that he was stubborn by not joining in with Charlie. Charlie, for his part, had barely left my sister's side, and was sweating through the armpits of his expensive shirt--as my mother was soon telling everyone in the room, Charlie and Julie had waltzed _twice._ Yet there Percy stood, unmovable. His legs must have been falling asleep, standing still for so long by the refreshments. Even Carolina joined in with some of the dancing, stooping—both figuratively and literally--to dance with Noah, who, despite his stature, had just got his braces off and started the Strength Training elective at school.

"Sloooow dance," John crooned over the mic. "Married couples only. Married...couples...only. You get off the floor, there, Julie."

Julie and Charlie retired to the chairs, sitting close to each other--I would say to speak, but only Charlie seemed to be doing any talking, while Julie attentively nodded, attention rapt. My mother stepped forlornly onto the dance floor with a sigh, as if only just realizing Dad wasn't there, then took Pastor Frances by the collar and shouted at John, "You didn't say married to each other, did you, John?!".

Then she began to tell Pastor Frances that the handsome new boy had danced with Julie all day and would probably propose--loudly enough for me, Celia, Percy, and inevitably Charlie to hear.

Celia tugged on my arm before the mortification had time to settle in my stomach.

"I need something to drink," she gasped, her thick black hair escaping its butterfly clips, her chest heaving. She smiled. "And some cornbread."

I tugged her hand and guided her to the refreshments table. Nearby, Carolina and Percy were standing a strange distance from each other, cross-armed and sullen. After Charlie had assured us very oddly that he and his sister weren't, in fact, dating, I'd naturally assumed that the other two--who did not at first glance appear to be blood-related--perhaps were. They seemed to suit each other, standing there with their pretty chins held high and their arms crossed. But the distance at which they were standing--further apart than siblings or even friends--suggested that perhaps they weren't a couple. Or if they had been, they weren't anymore.

 _Interesting_.

"Here you go," Celia said, popping a deviled egg into her mouth while simultaneously handing me a Capri Sun. "Natural fruit drink," she said, fingers twirling above the pre-buttered cornbread as she selected the perfect slice.

I thanked her and shoved the straw into the bag. Over her head, I watched Carolina judging the size of Celia's backside with downcast, heavily mascara'd eyes.

"Let's go sit somewhere else," I said, taking her by the arm.

We left the basement with our drinks and plates, and found our familiar hidey hole by the bathrooms: the little half-closet under the stairs we'd blanket-forted in since we were children. It was always perfect, just wide enough for sitting in with our backs against facing walls, feet against feet, the long, blue velvet curtain hanging down the huge, high windows at the back of the church and cascading over the closet entrance, letting in just enough light from the window to see each other but making us invisible to anyone and everyone in the hallway.

Sometimes they stored things in here--chairs, tables, this huge painting of Jesus that someone had ordered especially but they had to make room for on the basement wall. Celia had had her first kiss in here with Micah Ford when they were eleven and I was ten, and I hadn't yet started even _thinking_ about boys in any way that would make me want to kiss them. She had told me every detail, and I couldn't stop thinking of them being here, in our sacred place, doing _that_. I'd run off crying, jealous and hurt, and she'd found me and hugged me and told me she'd never kiss a boy again. Now, as we crammed in here as two adults much larger and only a little wiser, I bit my lip and thought she probably hadn't been kissed since.

I always thought Celia was beautiful. She had huge, curling, wild black hair that took up more than its fair share of space. Her brown eyes glittered, her face dimpled, her laugh was generous and round. A large mole (a beauty mark _a la_ Cindy Crawford, I reminded her) adorned her left cheek, just above the dimple. Her off-white dress brought out the honeyed bronze in her skin. Her eyes were clever and assessing, and she was a dab hand at sewing her own clothes—a skill I envied, but which she could never practice to full effect, as restricted as she was by finances and modesty.

I never hesitated to remind Celia that she was smart, industrious, and pretty, but she would always disagree with me, especially on the last point. I had tried to change her mind many, many times, but in the past few years I'd come to the conclusion that I couldn't change people's minds for them. It was something she had to do on her own.

"What body spray are you wearing?" Celia asked, lurching forward to get a whiff.

I held out my wrist. "Vanilla."

"Nice," she said. She offered me her own arm. "Freesia."

I also gave her wrist a sniff. "I like yours better. Mine's almost worn off."

"It's all the dancing. Elijah danced with you twice?"

I snorted. "He tried, God bless him." I prodded my feet through my white mary janes. "I think I'm bleeding through my socks."

"Should I go get you the wheelchair?"

"If you could."

She feigned getting up--I feigned catching her hand to stop her. Then we both stopped and fell immediately silent. Celia shuffled back into her seat like someone scuttling back from the edge of a cliff.

Unfamiliar footsteps were approaching.

They were light, click-y, like kitten heels, with a softer, briefer punctuation of scuffing, hard soles. A woman and a man--or a girl and a boy. We both held our breaths, our eyes meeting across our shared space, Celia’s glittering. As much as we'd made a ritual or holing up in this little closet, it was even more a ritual to eavesdrop on whoever was loitering by the bathrooms. Where Celia loved carefully collecting crumbs of gossip, I loved observing people--a habit Julie thought was unkind. But she didn't understand. It wasn't malicious, or just to join in with Celia (entirely). It was like...a study. A practice of anthropology and sociology, judging the human’s interactions, expectations, and foibles. It was one of the many reasons I was still here.

"There you are." It was Carolina. I hadn't heard enough to recognize her voice immediately, but I knew everyone at church, and no one had the same clipped, low voice she did. It was like a cat: slinky, confident, and a little bit mean. "If you were going to leave, you could have taken me with you."

The other voice was Percy's. "I went to the washroom.”

"Still," Carolina said. There was an uneasy, small laugh on her part, not on Percy's. I couldn't imagine Percy ever laughing. I didn't think his mouth was capable of making the required shape. "You know it's almost four o'clock?"

"Yes," Percy replied, though he didn't care to say any more. _Yes,_ I mouthed at Celia, lifting my chin and pursing my lips. She grimaced and put her finger to her lips, telling me off for nearly making her laugh and giving us away.

"I can't believe we've been at church _all day_ ," Carolina said, like she hadn't just been feeling up Noah's bicep only thirty minutes before. "This isn't normal, is it? Staying at church for an entire Sunday? We're going to grow old and die here."

"I thought you liked dancing," Percy replied. _Why does she even bother?_ I thought, pursing my lips and trying not to laugh out loud. Where Carolina's voice was cat-like, Percy's was like a piano with only one working key. I suspected there was something outside the range that he was either unwilling or unable to play.

"I do like dancing," she insisted. "But with peninsula rednecks? Moses-" _Noah_ "-told me that grinding was a _sin_. I thought we were going to a church, not a cult."

Celia and I met eyes. Her face had stiffened as she ran her tongue across her teeth. I mirrored her expression, my hackles raised. _Rednecks?_ Belleport was the largest town this side of the Sound; we were the hub of the northern peninsula, where everyone went for their orthodontic appointments and to shop at the mall. No, we weren’t Seattle, but _rednecks_?

"You're speaking too loudly, Carolina," Percy warned her.

Carolina ignored him. "I really can't see Mom here. She's so... _normal_ compared to these people."

"I don't think--"

"There you are!" Another, altogether more cheerful voice cut into the conversation. "I've been looking all over. What are you doing to poor Percy, Car? And Perc, why aren't you dancing? There are so many girls in there sitting on the sidelines, and a few boys too--"

Percy cut him off. "Then they can dance with each other. You have the best-looking one here, Charlie."

I felt myself blush. I didn't know if a conversation about my sister was something I wanted to listen to. I'd heard far too many unsavory ones before.

"She’s the sweetest person I've ever met, and the prettiest, too," Charlie declared, and I warmed through immediately. There was nothing mean, nothing gross. No calling my sister "smoking hot" or "a nice bit of T and A". Charlie appeared to be exactly the same person with his friends as he had been with my sister, if only a little bit over-the-top. "But her sisters are pretty good-looking. What about Becca?"

I blushed hotter at the compliment. Celia nudged me, like I needed to pay any further attention, like I wasn't about to fall through the velvet curtain and unfurl on the floor at their feet.

On the other side of the curtain, Carolina snorted.

Percy answered. His voice never strayed from its single, monotonous note:

"Maybe a five."

My face tightened. My hand flew out to stop Celia from bursting through the curtain after him. I dragged her back and held a finger to her lips. _It's fine_ , I mouthed at her, pretending to laugh, but inside, I was seething.

"You're blind, Percy," Charlie said, disapproval coloring his tone for the first time. Suddenly, the dusty linoleum beneath us began to vibrate with a new bass line. "Last song, Percy," Charlie called, already half-way out of the room. "I'll enjoy myself for both of you!"

There was a pause after Charlie had left, the double-doors swinging shut behind him with a soft _woosh_.

"I'm on the next ferry back," Carolina said.

"I'll drive you," said Percy.

"You can swim," I muttered, and I crushed the foil pouch of the Capri Sun until it was only a broken ring of silver in my hand.


	3. A Plot

As they always did, things returned to normal in the week after Purity Day. School, church, the movies with Celia, the clouds draining away from the sky as we crept toward summer. I tried to forget about Charlie, Carolina, and Percy--forget about them just as I had the other kids who had appeared and disappeared at church through the years--but it was difficult to shake the young man who had branded me a Five from my head. It was ridiculous, but I started to doubt and regret everything, from my previous choice of dress for the prom--now three weeks past (and dateless, of course)--to the senior photos I'd submitted to the yearbook. I took my Doc Martens back out from my closet. I agonized over my hair, the little makeup I was allowed to wear. Celia lectured me on standing up straight as I let her hem me into her outfits for the county fair fashion show. I stared at myself in the mirror in the morning, naming my flaws.

"Stop it," I snapped at my reflection. "Stop it, Becca. There's nothing wrong with you."

Then the phone call came.

Julie answered it, like she already knew who it would be—as though some telepathic connection had formed between her and Charlie in the short, glorious afternoon she never talked about but that I knew, from the subtly dreamy look in her eyes, she thought about often. I inferred immediately from the shy, polite tone of her voice that it was Someone Special. I waited at the kitchen island, a spoon and yogurt at hand, and watched her with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," she said, all sweetness and smiles--the sort you'd be able to hear from the other end of the line. "Yes, I'd like that. Tonight? No, no, I'm just meeting up with a frie—a girlfriend for lunch. I don't have any plans tonight. Yes, I'd love to." She dropped the pen she was holding, scrambled for it, nearly pulled the phone base down with her, then jotted something down on the memo pad. "Great, we'll see you tonight." Pause. A mixed expression I couldn't read flitted across Julie's face. "Yes, of course. Yes, I think so. I will. Thank you, Charlie."

She hung up.

"Finally," I exhaled.

"It's not a date," she said, her face going a pink that stood out starkly in our white and chrome kitchen.

"Sounded like one from this end." I broke into a grin. "Took him long enough."

"It's _not_ a date," she insisted.

"Tonight?" I urged her.

"At his vacation house." She colored further. "No, not like that! Percy and Carolina will be there." I scoffed and she shot me a patient but knowing look. I'd told her all about our eavesdropping beneath the stairs. She'd been certain that we'd heard incorrectly ("You're so much prettier than I am, Becca!" she'd said, the kind fool), but she had slowly come around to the idea that I wasn't making things up, and had even stooped to calling Percy "mean". It was some way off from pompous, uptight, arrogant ass, but I'd take it. "And," Julie continued, "Charlie’s also invited you."

I sucked up a spoonful of sunset-colored yogurt, the flavor of which I still couldn't figure out. "Why?" I said.

She shrugged. "Why wouldn't he?"

"Because I'm a Five," I said through a mouthful, the yogurt sitting strangely and solidly on my tongue. I swallowed. "You didn't say I'd go, did you?"

Julie glanced sweetly at the ceiling. "There's nothing on your calendar."

"There's never anything on my calendar," I said. "That's the way I like it. Take Cynth with you so I can read in the bath."

She craned her neck back with real, alarming pleading. " _Please,_ Becca? Mom would be so much happier if you went with me. _Please?_ "

"Please, what?" Cynthia had appeared, late as usual, but bright-faced and freshly scrubbed without the makeup she usually wore to cover the breakout on her chin. "I heard my name."

"Speak of the devil," I said.

"Oh, don't _you_ start!" Cynthia cried. "For the last time, I am not possessed! And WHY are you eating my yogurt?"

I surrendered it. Cynthia held it over her mouth and shook it, like she expected it to magically funnel straight onto her tongue.

"Charlie invited me over," Julie admitted at last.

"Who?" Cynthia said.

"The guy from church."

"The hella fine jerk?" Cynthia asked.

Julie, if possible, went even redder.

"No, the shorter one."

"Oh," she said. She set the yogurt down on the counter and took my spoon, licking it clean. "Are you gonna do it?"

" _Cynthia_ ," Julie snapped.

"What?" Cynthia replied.

"Good morning!"

Mom appeared, as she always did at the slightest hint of untoward conversation, flitting cheerily down the wooden stairs in her Chinese silk bathrobe that Dad had bought her on a business trip when they’d just married. It was now faded and frayed, but I literally could not imagine her starting a day without it--her showing up to breakfast fully dressed would be as alarming as her coming into the kitchen stark naked--another image I didn't want to entertain.

"What are you talking about?" She opened the fridge and took out her lactose-free milk substitute, then proceeded to neck it with a handful of pills from her dispenser. "My head is killing me. Tossing and turning all night. But don't mind me. What's happened?"

She didn't mean it, really. Conversations could not continue the way she pretended she wanted them to. Our dear mother would find some way to twist topics back to her health--her headaches, her achy hips, her bloating, her other ailments that she blamed wholly on giving birth to us--until we'd shown the required amount of sympathy. As bade, we cooed over her for the requisite minute until she told us to stop fussing, then she asked Julie why she wasn't looking very well.

"She has a date," Cynthia said, spooning the rest of the yogurt out of the cup in a small-fist-sized blob.

" _Date?"_ We all flinched; Mom's voice was not suited for mornings. "What? Who?"

"With Charlie," Julie said, eyes approaching Disney-princess width and, instead of blushing, she grew ever paler. She didn't want to admit the phone call to Mom, but we both knew Mom had an odd talent for perception and sniffed out _everything_ , and, as Cynthia had learned after the condoms-under-the-bed fiasco, it was easier and less painful to be direct than to suffer the consequences of willful concealment.

"Praise the _Lord!_ " Mom said. "It's about time you were courting someone properly! And someone like him--a very good young man."

Cynthia snorted. "With a BMW."

"A very good young man with a BMW," Mom confirmed without shame.

"We're not courting," Julie insisted, so quietly that even I could barely hear her. "It's not even a date. I'm just going over to his house. Other people will be there."

Other people like me. She was lucky to be so sweet. I would never do this for Cynthia.

"When?" Mom said. She pulled over the morning newspaper from its discarded position on the breakfast bar next to the crumbs of my dad's ritual bagel and cream cheese.

"Tonight," Julie said. "It's just casual. Movies and stuff. Nothing special."

"Where is it?" Mom said, licking her thumb.

Julie didn't even need to consult her notepad.

"On Ocean View," she said, while I grimaced--of course it was Ocean View. That was where the craftsman homes were, where they could overlook the water from cradles of lush evergreens. Belleport’s own mini-Mercer Island. Even the cheap end of the street started at half-a-million, and the Greens didn't seem like a half-a-million sort of family.

"Shush," Mom cut her off. The three of us watched her in varying states of confusion as she flipped through the pages of _The Belleport Sun_ , then folded it open to the weather. "Yes! I am a genius."

None of us dared argue with her.

She folded the newspaper open and held it up so we could bask in the glory of her ingenuity.

"Wind storm coming!" she trilled, waving the newspaper about in the air.

"Oh, no," Julie murmured, the promise of a night with Charlie vanishing rapidly. A slight, sweet frown line formed between her eyes as she grew confused over our mother delightfully throwing a wrench in her plans with an eligible young man.

"Nooo," Mom reassured her. "It won't start until eleven, this says." She flicked the paper with a bitten-down nail. "What is Ocean View full of on the east side, in all that woodland?"

We all joined with Julie in frowning at our mother. We didn’t have the slightest clue what she was talking about.

"Cottonwoods!" she enthused. Her smudged red lips spread into a triumphant grin. "They'll go over in a stiff breeze! And the driftwood comes in from the ocean when the waves get high. The road always gets blocked off in these storms...you'll just _have_ to spend the night. It's a sign from God! I know it!"

"Mom..." I warned her.

"I don't know..." Julie said with an uneasy twirl of her white-blond hair.

"Trust me," Mom said, shoving the paper at Julie as though to prove her point. "How do you think I wore your father down into marrying me? Think ahead, dear. Jesus gave you that face for a reason."

She bent across the breakfast bar, kissed my sister on the forehead, and disappeared into the living room with a flick of her bathrobe belt. Her headache, apparently, had vanished.


	4. Ocean View

I drove because Julie's hands wouldn't stop shaking. She wouldn't even admit it to me, her own sister, but I knew she was nervous. Like me, Julie had never gone on a date--not on a real one--and this was as close as she had ever come. And despite what she kept insisting, this was not just Charlie "inviting friends over". This was solely to get to know Julie better, and so that he might see her in the best light, and so that he may, as our mother wished, feel the Holy Spirit move him to get down on one knee and propose to her.

I tried not to let Julie on to my darkening mood, which grew ever bleaker the closer we got to the beach. Instead, I turned on the radio. _MMMBop_. I turned it off.

Julie sighed and we carried on in silence.

Belleport was no redneck haven, but it was an odd town--I’d have to hand Carolina that. We were Seattle suburbia marooned on the peninsula: a former port town, Belleport had morphed and changed over the past eighty years into a Stepford wife that nestled down in the green foothills of the Olympics, dressed up to please an onslaught of well-off retirees, navy recruits, and the families of important men who travelled a lot. That didn’t mean we didn’t have poor people, of course; I still clearly remember driving home with Mom and Dad when I was six and Celia and her mother had just arrived at church. “Lovely lady,” Mom had said from the front passenger seat, covering an oncoming migraine with her Ray Bans. “Shame about the divorce. And did you hear her say she lives in one of those apartments downtown?”

Ocean View was _not_ one of those apartments downtown.

It was pristine as we drove down the boulevard--no sign of any brewing storm but a typical wisp of grey sitting on the distant horizon, the road swept clear or any twigs or branches.

"It's so beautiful," Julie said, her face pressed against the window. Her hair glittered alternate shades of platinum and gold in the light. "Oh, it would be so wonderful to have this view."

"Planning to move in already, are you?"

She gave my leg a tap of admonishment.

"Six-hundred thirty-five, thirty-seven, here we are," Julie said.

I pulled off and into a drive blocked by wrought iron gates, which swung open automatically as if by invisible hands. Julie gasped at the extravagance; my fingers whitened on the wheel. Ahead, a long drive wound through tall pines, firs, and spruces. Speckled sunlight glimmered along the pavement. Ferns and wildflowers burst from the shade.

Julie gasped again as we broke through a short line of trees and into the cul-de-sac that rounded an (I thought) rather ostentatious fountain built of varying sizes of rocks and boulders, meant to look like a waterfall. The house was a 70s-brown, unimpressive from the front but blending in well with the rough bark of the surrounding trees. It looked demure from this vantage point--merely a pair of double garage doors and two upstairs windows watching like eyes, but I could hear the ocean from here, and undoubtedly the view from inside would be worth that cool at-least-half-million alone.

Julie was already on the front step before I'd had a chance to leave the car, ringing the doorbell.

Charlie was just as quick to answer.

"There you are!" He bent forward at a slight angle--either to give my sister a hug, a handshake, or a European-style kiss on both cheeks, neither of them seemed to be sure. Instead, he settled into an odd, shallow bow and rose, looking flustered. "How are you?"

"Fine," Julie replied. She was oddly stiff. I knew she wasn’t sure what she should be doing with her expression. "You?"

"I'm _so_ good," Charlie replied with a grin that threatened to swallow his dimples. "And Becca!" He jumped in surprise to see me, even though Julie insisted he’d invited me along. "How are you?"

"Fine, thanks," I said, smiling at him--it was difficult not to.

"You have a lovely home," Julie said, even though all she could see at that moment was the front door and Charlie blocking it.

"I just wish I could spend more time here," he said. He backed up a step. "Come in. Shoes off, if that's okay...my mom's rule. I'm sure your feet are lovely. I mean clean. I mean...I'll stop now." He beamed at us both. "Come in," he said again.

Like the drive and the exterior, inside the house, everything was wood. The rooms we passed as we followed Charlie down the stairs seemed to be a hodge-podge of antiqued, dark-colored wood paneling and olive green carpet that had as of yet resisted remodeling, and newly retouched rooms with blond floors and beachy planks reaching halfway up the walls. We passed a bedroom, and Charlie quickly closed the door, as though embarrassed. I guessed immediately that it must be his, though Julie pretended not to notice. I wondered which ones we'd be sleeping in tonight if our mother's windstorm came to pass.

"And here we are," Charlie announced as we arrived in the basement--which could not in any normal person's vocabulary ever be considered a basement. Basements were dark, dank places with condensation on the walls and dusty exercise equipment shoved into a corner. This was... _light_. Floor-to-ceiling windows stretched the entirety of the north wall, showing little but water and sky. The low sun was hidden by an outcrop of land to the west, but the clouds that streaked the sky from the horizon were still brilliant shades of purple, orange, salmon pink, and scarlet. Little islands of sofas and leather armchairs floated across the light wood floor; a fire was burning in the brick fireplace, cozy and inviting.

There was the _clack_ of pool balls; Percy straightened from where I hadn't seen him in the darkest corner, his head nearly brushing the ceiling light.

"Hi," he said, that single note dampened. Carolina, who was aiming for a ball and wearing a low-cut mini-dress, scratched the table and swore.

"Hello," Julie said.

I ignored them both.

"Your turn, Percy," Carolina told him, ignoring us in turn.

"Now." Charlie leaped over the sofa that sat in front of a huge, fat television set, landing next to a pile of videotapes teetering on the rug, alternating colors of black and orange. " _Harriet the Spy, Bambi,_ oh... _Space Jam_. Or what about _Clueless_?

I tried not to give myself away. I loved _Clueless;_ it was the first PG-13 movie I’d ever been allowed to watch, even if Mom had only let us watch it because she found Cher’s lifestyle “aspirational, if a little _loud._ ” I’d still never watched all of it—Mom always insisted on watching it with us, and would fast forward through the house party and the conversation at the restaurant with the breadsticks.

Fortunately, Julie shared my taste.

"I _love_ _Clueless_ ," she said. "But we can watch _Space Jam_. I haven't seen that one, yet."

For anyone who knew Julie but hadn't asked after her burgeoning feelings for Charlie, this would have been the first giveaway that she was interested in him. Julie had seen _Space Jam_...and she had hated it. However, her lovely face gave away nothing but kind patience and, perhaps, to the outsider, a shade of boredom and indifference rather than her natural shyness.

"No, no, " Charlie said. He didn't seem to think she was bored, or if he did, he was adopting extra enthusiasm to make up for it. "Clueless would be great. "

In that moment, the two of them shared such a long, unblinking stare that I felt like I was intruding on something private.

"I'll put it on," I said.

We settled in with popcorn, throw pillows, and a veritable array of candy, half of which I didn’t recognize and had the ingredients written in French on the back. Percy and Carolina didn't join us. They stayed in their corner, keeping their own vile company. I sat on the far end of the four-seater sofa, Charlie on the other, Julie between us, balancing awkwardly on the join between two cushions. She looked very stiff, and every so often, I would nudge her with my toes to try to encourage her to relax, or at least to swat me away. She wasn't used to this, I had to keep reminding myself. She had spent her entire life reminded that she was not allowed to date, but instead expected to court and marry. Now that she was here with someone, and someone she actually had an interest in, she had no idea how to act.

Neither did Charlie. Once, just once, I saw his hand creep across the back of the sofa. It lasted only one Cher-wardrobe-change before the hand was back in his lap.

In the corner, Carolina was holding a pool cue behind her back. Percy was laughing--an odd, muffled laugh that sounded like it belonged to someone else.

"Scratch," he said. "Admirable try. My go."

"God! You're such a cheater."

"Perhaps you're just not very good at pool."

Charlie was looking at Julie instead of the film; she seemed oblivious to his attention. We exchanged an uneasy glance across Julie's lap as he silently begged me for privacy.

I slid from the sofa with a sigh. "Can I have next game?" I asked, approaching Carolina and Percy.

I didn't even have to ask for a pool cue. Carolina handed hers over as soon as I came near. "Here. Percy's a terrible cheater, anyway. Aren't you, Perce?"

Percy, as cool and amiable as always, stood there rigidly in one corner, flanked by huge black and white paintings of zebras, and said, "No."

"I'm stripes," Carolina said. "You need to hit them into the pocket with the white ball."

I chalked the tip of the cue and smiled at her sweetly. "Thank you."

Carolina had five balls left; Percy had only one. I was wearing a peasant dress—one of Celia’s creations. It didn't gape as I bent over, but in the periphery of my vision, Percy seemed more uncomfortable than usual as I reached across the table to aim.

"Scratch!" Carolina shouted with a giggle, banging the table with her hip, but it had no effect. The white ball hit the first stripe, which hit the second; both went into the pockets either side of where Percy stood, his hands fastened to the edge of the table, expensive gold watch gleaming in the warm lamplight.

"Good shot," Percy congratulated me, but begrudgingly.

I shrugged, hiding a smug smile. We had a pool table in our rec room. Dad and I used to slip upstairs on Saturday evenings after dinner, when Mom and Cynthia would crowd around the TV and crank it up to ninety.

"Beginner's luck," I said.

Both of us faltered for the next few turns, hitting much, moving little. I grimaced when the 10 ball just glanced the top left pocket.

Percy scratched, rattled for some reason. I bent to take my next shot.

"I'm surprised you're even allowed to play pool," Carolina said coolly from the little bar stool in the corner. "Isn't it against your religion?"

"I missed that bit in the Bible," I remarked, trying not to let her bother me but failing. Scratch. "Darts, however, I _know_ are completely out of the question."

"Are they?"

"You shouldn't tease her," Percy told me in a sudden and unexpected moment of camaraderie.

"Stop talking about me like I'm an idiot," Carolina demanded of Percy. She turned back to me. "I'm surprised you're even here at all. So you're, like, even allowed to have friends?"

"Yes." I pursed my lips, my neck burning as I turned my back to her.

"But not sex," Carolina said.

"Car," Percy warned her.

I wasn't going to let him fight my battles for me, not after the Five. "When we're married," I said.

"You know that doesn't work," Carolina said. "You just end up pregnant with loads of STDs because they don't teach you how to use a condom properly."

Percy nudged the 8 ball even closer to the corner pocket. He would win next turn, no question.

"I'm fully aware," I said.

"Yet you still subscribe to their teachings anyway," Percy cut in, surprising me, and I met his heavy, unblinking gaze with raised eyebrows.

"I never said I did," I replied smartly. It was difficult to keep an edge of bitterness from creeping into my voice. Something about him--even prior to The Five--has made me so _angry,_ so steadily boiling. The way he looked at me, like he wanted to pick apart all of my many flaws, inside and out. "I've seen what happens with the girls older than me. Married and pregnant out of high school, some stuck on the base while their husbands go out to sea. Angelica Lamb just filed for divorce, and she was right up there at the altar with me three years ago. If you're looking for cynicism, I'm your girl."

"But you were still there."

 _Clack_. "Of course I was." My last two balls went in. I bit back a victorious smile. Percy and I were even. "I love my family. What was your excuse?"

Carolina blinked. "We were just tourists. We're Methodists now. And Percy's pescetarian."

"It’s Episcopalian, and I’m not. I’m Anglican," Percy corrected her, pointing to the pocket on my right. Anglican—wasn’t that the Church of England? I'd thought he was Canadian? But England would explain the accent...though it didn't sound completely English, either. It sounded...confused, like it was dressing up in another culture's costume but had forgotten the hat. "But mostly as a matter of tradition. Top left."

The click of the ball was as elegant and precise as his strange, clear, monotonous voice. The 8 ball went exactly where he said it would, slipping into the top left pocket with hardly a sound.

I didn't have a chance to congratulate him. Carolina was already dragging Percy to the sofa, though he was scowling at me as they went. "Finally!" she said. "I've played your stupid game. Now it's time for a movie."

I put the pool cues back in the rack without complaint, though I did start to wonder if I'd been invited only so I could be judged and play maid.

It was only then that I glanced back toward the sofa and noticed that Julie was grey around the edges, stiff and pale. It wasn't just the fading light or the glow of the television screen. Outside, the wind was beginning to howl. The walls began to groan and creek. Beyond the plate windows, the sky was red and swollen, and the dark water was undoubtedly choppy below.

"I swear someday we'll slide off this cliff," Carolina complained, collapsing onto a vinyl beanbag with a squeal. She reached for the bowl of popcorn and tossed a piece into her mouth. "At least then we could buy a real vacation home in Malibu."

"Mom will never sell this place," Charlie said with the ever-so-slightest frown. "Not that she should."

"But it's _so_ old," Carolina complained.

"Built to last," Charlie argued.

"I think it's time we went home," I said. _Clueless_ wasn't even over, but Julie was looking paler, near ashen, and I was worried she was actually coming down with something. "It's getting really windy. The trees might go down over the road and we'd never get back."

"No!" Charlie was on his feet before I could even move for my jacket. "I didn't even think of that. I can't let you leave in this. What if a tree fell on your car on the way home? I'd never forgive myself."

"Better than sliding off a cliff," muttered Carolina.

"We have a spare bedroom," Charlie continued. "Two, actually. I'm sure Carolina has pajamas that would fit you--"

"Not likely," said Carolina.

"And the beds are already made. Stay. _Please_."

"Becca?" Julie bent toward me, whispering. Her face was blank and pale, her blue eyes wide, limpid pools.

She looked stunning, like she was about to break someone's heart.

She grimaced, her perfect features contorting.

"I think I'm going to throw up."

#

Mom got her wish.

I'm not sure it was the way she intended the night to go. The wind storm? Spot on. The sick daughter, spending the entire night in the bathroom while Charlie and I took turns holding back her hair and running to the kitchen for fresh glasses of ginger ale? Probably not. But if she knew, she'd be having kittens to think that Charlie was not scared off by Julie's illness, but instead as intent on nursing her as well as her own sister. Mom would have already left messages on Bella Bridal's answering machine.

I didn't know if Charlie was just trying to impress Julie, but at one point, around two AM, I stopped caring if he was pretending or not. He was there, falling asleep on the bathroom floor next to her as she pressed her forehead to the toilet bowl and lamented having had the oysters from the waterfront bar at lunch on Friday. And he was always, always apologizing--like it was his fault that her coworkers had talked her into buying seafood from a place that had been shuttered for health code violations twice in the past year. "But it's so _good_!" Julie had said, always far too quick to forgive. "And the people who work there are so nice."

Eventually, at just past three, she was able to keep down a glass of ginger ale and two Saltines, and I finally coaxed Charlie into going to bed. I waited for the distant door to click shut over the groan of the house settling in the storm, then slid back against the bathroom cabinet, slicking back my hair from my face. Across from me, slumped against the bath, Julie was regaining some of her color and then some--the mortification was beginning to slide home, settling a deep maroon over her cheeks.

"I can't believe I threw up in front of him," she grumbled.

"Several times," I added.

Julie groaned and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead.

"Maybe it wasn't the oysters," I said. "Maybe Mom poisoned you in case the windstorm didn't work out."

"Becca!" Julie protested hoarsely. "No!" Still, she was smiling. A little.

"Okay, maybe not. Convenient, though."

Julie moaned, "He _saw_ me. He saw... _stuff_...come out of my mouth."

"And he stayed." I popped the tab of a fresh can of Canada Dry. My teeth felt fuzzy, my eyes itchy and red. I stifled a yawn. "You're as good as married already. Percy and Carolina were nowhere to be seen the moment we took you to the bathroom."

"Percy..." Her lovely features furrowed, a loose, white curl sliding down to stick to the towel slung around her neck. "What were you talking about at the pool table?"

"Nothing important." I nudged her foot with mine. Our toenails were matching shades of pale pink; I'd let her paint mine while we watched _America's Funniest Home Videos_. She always turned her back on the clips of people getting hurt. "They are not...pleasant."

"Charlie must like Percy for a reason."

"Maybe he owes him money."

" _Becca,_ " Julie scolded me again, and I could tell she was starting to feel better. "You're tired. You should go to bed. I promise I feel _much_ better."

I patted her toes and climbed to my feet. "I'll get your bag so you can clean up." I hid another yawn in the crook of my elbow. "Wake me up if you need anything, okay?"

"Thanks, Becca," she whispered, and I kissed her on her sweaty forehead and left her on the bathroom floor.

I found my room, stubbed my toe on the bedpost, and bit back a sinful word before settling into a king-sized bed that I imagined used the same bedding you'd find at the Emerald-on-Sea. I lay there in wonder, staring at the sparkling popcorn ceiling, and announced out loud, "I have never been so comfortable in my life."

And yet I dozed fitfully, in and out of sleep so shallow I'd barely dipped in a toe. The house was too noisy, the smell too woodsy, the wind storm howling outside my window and sending pine needles skittering like fingernails across the glass. I kept replaying the horrified, horrible look on Julie's face as she turned to me; I kept thinking about Percy and Carolina questioning me at the pool table, and how Percy looked at me when Carolina pulled him away, and how I was right to think they were watching, assessing, _judging_.

 _Maybe a five_.

I scowled and punched my pillow into shape, imagining it was Percy's face. I hated him, and I hated that I hated him--I knew that if he wasn't so objectively handsome (and--because one cannot have such a mother without it affecting one's brain in such a specific way--very rich), his rejection would have stung less.

I checked in on Julie at half past six, just to make sure she was still breathing, then I grabbed my coat and sneaked through the front door so silently that even Mom--who blamed any and all nocturnal shuffling for splitting headaches the next day--wouldn't have heard me.

Stepping outside was like stepping into a lake on a hot summer's day. The storm had finally cleared, and the air smelled like it had been freshly washed and hung on a line to dry. The horizon beyond the trees was still pink, the sky only just lightening, but it was bright enough to make out the stone steps that wound behind the house, through the sentinels of fifty-foot pine trees and down past the basement window. Already I could hear the waves crashing on the beach below, and--as it was so often for everyone who lived this close to the water--it was impossible not to feel drawn to it. Like it was part of you, no matter how much Pastor Frances insisted our ancestors didn't crawl from the ocean millions of years ago. _It's a God thing,_ he'd said, all eloquence and specifics. I believed in God, of course, though I was disinclined to believe Pastor Frances. But even in the wind and the waves, there was a stillness to it. A peace. I guess, as far as I could tell, he might be right. Maybe it was _a God thing._

The shoreline was rocky and littered with fresh branches. Bleached hunks of driftwood twisted into ghostly pink-white shapes on the tide line, while dark shapes of tiny islands littered the water in the near-distance, their trees battered, half-broken branches hanging over the waves. While the storm had died, it was still windy, and I pulled my hood over my head to keep my hair out of my face.

There were footsteps behind me. They didn't sound like Julie's.

I closed my eyes.

"Lovely morning," Percy said.

I breathed out hard through my nose.

"Beautiful," I agreed through my teeth, and I re-opened my eyes to find Percy standing at my side, a respectable few feet away. He was fully dressed in dark jeans and a V-neck sweater, and holding a thermos. "Why are you awake?" My voice was harsher than I intended.

"Couldn't sleep. The walls in that house are fairly thin."

My face reddened, and I wondered how much--not just of the puking--but of the conversation about Julie marrying Charlie and how Percy and Carolina were “not pleasant” had travelled into his bedroom and into his waiting ears.

"I told her she shouldn't eat oysters," I said. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and gazed at the water, the new, pink sunlight glinting off the caps of the waves. "They're the coffee filters of the ocean. No good could ever come of it."

"Does she often refuse to listen to you?"

I squinted at him, wondering where this was going.

"She thinks I'm too mean," I admitted. Though she would only say so in the gentlest way possible, and with a kiss of forgiveness on my cheek.

"Are you?" Percy replied, his dark eyes trained on me. Why was he here? Why didn't he just leave instead of debasing himself by engaging in conversation with me?

"I think I'm fair," I said. "And pragmatic. The world can be complicated and cruel, and I have no interest in leaving her to face it alone. People take advantage of her...hence the oysters. Is Charlie as nice as he seems?"

He frowned. "You're quite blunt, for a girl."

It was an odd pronouncement, as though he’d been thinking it for a while and felt the overwhelming need to shoehorn it in whenever conversation allowed...and like he was attempting to make a firm decision on my character, since I had already formed an obvious opinion on his.

"You must not have met many girls, then,” I replied.

His frown began the transition to a scowl. "Yes," he said, teeth gritted. "Charlie is as _nice as he seems_. And your sister is the same?"

"She's the kindest person in the world."

He sipped from his thermos. I smelled coffee.

"You may want to go back," he told me. "Julie would be worried to find you missing."

"Yes, and I'm sure people will talk if word ever got back to them that I was on my own with a member of the opposite sex. I'll have to start sewing red letters onto all my clothing."

He turned on me. The wind kicked up, dislodging wavy black strands of his expensive haircut. "Are you angry with me?"

"On a scale of one to ten?" I said. "Maybe a _five_." I gave him a wave and turned to go just as his eyes began to widen. "See you at breakfast!"

#

Julie didn't have to worry about her food poisoning--or its impact on her looks--having any affect at all on Charlie's affection for her. If anything, he was even more attentive as we appeared in the kitchen that morning, me propping Julie up with one arm, half-asleep myself after a few more hours of fitful dozing and a warm shower.

"What can you stomach?" he asked Julie as I deposited her in a chair at the table. "How about some toast? Do you think you could have some orange juice?"

Julie blanched. "No, no orange juice. But some plain toast would be really nice, Charlie. Thank you."

They both beamed at each other--well, Charlie beamed; Julie's face remained delicate if slightly pinker--and Charlie slid on his socks toward the olive green, 70s-era toaster.

He popped two pieces of Wonderbread into the slots. "Percy and Car have just gone out to pick up some waffles from the Cliffhouse. Unfortunately, toast is the extent of my cooking abilities."

I couldn't help it--my ears perked up. The Cliffhouse Café was our family favorite breakfast spot. The cramped little booths and sea-view tables held some of the best memories of my childhood, from exchanging book recommendations with Dad when I requested breakfast--just for us--for my thirteenth birthday, to all those Sunday brunches with all five of us back before Dad stopped going to church. We stopped going to the Cliffhouse entirely after that. Mom said it was because it was making Cynthia fat (read: she was growing boobs), but we all know it was because it wasn't the same without Dad there.

"Oh," Julie said, "I love the Cliffhouse."

Charlie glanced up hopefully from the toaster. "Do you?"

"Yes, I--"

"We'll have to go there," he said, "when you're feeling better."

A small, nauseated smile slipped across Julie's lips. "When I'm feeling better," she said.

"And you, too, Becca. Of course," Charlie added.

"Oh," I said, a little wistful, while Julie looked mildly puzzled. "Sure."

Just then, the doorbell rang.

"That must be the waffles. Excuse me!"

Julie and I both watched Charlie scuttle off to the front door.

"He...surprises me," I said. "He's not really normal, is he?"

"No," Julie whispered. "He's wonderful."

"Did he have a normal upbringing, or--"

"He went to boarding school," Julie replied. "In New York. He thinks it's made him more independent than most guys his age...except for the cooking. That's why he's so skinny."

There was the sound of the door creaking open and Charlie exclaiming, "Waffles! Excellent!"

Percy's deep voice interrupted him. "We've found someone on your driveway, Charlie."

"You have?" Charlie asked.

"Hiiiiii!"

Julie and I both groaned in unison.

"What is she doing here?" Julie whispered into her folded arms.

"I called Mom," I admitted. "When you got sick."

"And she sent--Cynthia, hi!"

Our little sister burst into the kitchen with spread-wide hands, as though claiming the entire house for herself. She must have left home in a sweatshirt, because there was no way Mom would have let her go out the door in a spaghetti strap top that small.

“Goooood morning, beloved sisters!” Cynthia crowed, her voice, like our mother’s, too loud for mornings. “Mom just sent me over to check on you. Charlie, is that a pool I saw outside?"

"Um." Charlie fumbled for words by the doorway, while Percy and Carolina appeared behind him with stacks of gently steaming Styrofoam boxes. "Yes."

"Are you having a Memorial Day pool party next weekend?" Cynthia asked. "Because I would _love_ to come."

"No--" Carolina began.

Charlie cut her off. "We hadn't planned on anything, I think, but I don't see why not."

"Charlie," Percy whispered. "I don't think--"

"I think that sounds like a great idea," Charlie said, "if your sisters would be up for it?"

It was all I could do to keep from hiding my face in my hands.

"Um, sure," Julie said. I arranged an agreeable face (for Julie’s sake) and gave him a nod.

"Great," Charlie said, breaking into a wide but hesitant grin. I wondered if he was suddenly imagining what my sister might look like in a swimsuit. "Monday?"

"Monday works," Cynthia said. She rounded on Percy and Carolina. "Oh my G-O-D, is that from the Cliffhouse? GIMME."

Cynthia joined us for breakfast. She sat between Carolina and Percy; a few minutes later, Carolina proclaimed her waffle "disgusting" and left Cynthia to vacuum up the leftovers. Cynthia then settled into telling Charlie how pretty Julie was, leaving me and Percy, side by side, with only each other to talk to.

I took a terse bite of my (heavenly) waffle and a bit of strawberry, hoping he wouldn't bring up what I said on the beach, and regretting having uttered a word. I knew, in the brief second before I turned to go, that he knew what I was talking about. He knew I overheard him talking to Carolina at the dance. How he felt about me knowing, I wasn't sure, but he was even more awkward than usual, sitting very stiffly at my side.

Finally, and ever so painfully, he tried his hand at polite conversation.

"Charlie told me that you're graduating next month."

It took a moment for me to answer. If he was being polite, I guessed I could be, too. "Yes," I said.

"Are you going to college next year?"

"No," I said. "My help is required at home." It was an automatic response, and a practiced one. Guidance counselors, teachers: they’d all heard it at least once. Sometimes I lied and told them I didn’t know what I wanted, that I might just take a year off. That didn’t stop them from shoving school brochures at me and kindly offering to write letters of recommendation.

I took another bite.

"Are you going to college?" I asked before he could pry further.

"I'm at Oxford," he said. "I've just finished my first year."

"Oh," I said. I blinked, trying not to let my mother's thought process overtake my own. _England England England_ , she was chanting in my head, as though his university alone was proof of a specific pedigree. Still, it kind of was. Oxford was world-famous. He wouldn't have gotten in unless he was as intelligent as he was a snob. "Good for you," I added with only the mildest sarcasm. "What are you studying?"

"PPE--philosophy, politics, and--"

"I know what PPE means," I interrupted, maybe a little rudely. I'd flipped through the Oxford college brochures in the "DREAM BIG" folder in the guidance counselor's office. The PPE section in particular featured a number of photos of presumably famous British people with lots of letters after their names.

Oddly, Percy seemed more impressed than annoyed. "Do you?"

"I read a lot. So you want to be Prime Minister?"

He actually laughed. Kind of. It sounded more like a dog choking on something sharp. "No," he said. "I'm not British."

"Okay," I said. Another pause. "I...am confused by your accent."

"I moved around most of my childhood, but I've lived in England for seven years. Boarding school, now university."

"Then why are you here?"

"That is an excellent question," Percy said, attention falling on my little sister--as was only natural, as she was currently doing an excellent impression of a clapping seal. "Charlie's and my families are old friends. We often spend our summers together. Some of the time at our parents' houses," --the way he said 'houses' obviously indicated this included multiple houses, not just one per family-- "though mostly elsewhere."

"Where were you last year?"

"The French Riviera," he said matter-of-factly, as though it were Vancouver Island or the Oregon Coast.

"Ah, well." I broke off a piece of waffle and gave him a small salute with it. "At least we have pretty trees."

"Yes," Percy said, his eyes falling from Charlie--who was rushing to the counter to make Julie more toast--to his plate. "Everything here is very pretty."


	5. The Mission

I arrived home Wednesday afternoon to find Dad sitting at the kitchen island with a spread-out newspaper, a paint set, and his newest model train--a locomotive from a kit he'd been coveting in _Trainmaker_ magazine. He was wearing his glasses and had his tongue stuck between his lips in concentration. Still, as soon as he saw me, he held out his arms to bring me in for a hug.

"I feel like I never see you anymore," he said. At the age of fifty, Dad had semi-retired to consulting work one day a week, and had spent the past five years spending the other four days experimenting with approximately seventy different hobbies to see which ones stuck. He'd found golf (he told me) tedious, and the company "insufferable and misogynistic." He'd then tried to join the women's league, but they wouldn't let him in due to his being a man. After that, he'd moved on to beekeeping before finding out, after a trip to the ER, that he was, in fact, allergic to bees. After that came darts, painting, metal detecting, crossword puzzles, and wine-making--something he still did with my mother even after the passion had passed. Finally, he settled on trains. Mom always complained that he left his train sets everywhere, even though lately I had started to find American flag bows--tied with her special new bow-maker--festooning every corner of the house.

"Sorry," I said. "I've been busy."

His hug tightened before he let me go. He took off his glasses and set them on the counter, rubbing his tired eyes with the back of a paint-stained hand.

"I thought that after you left LatToGo I'd see you more often."

I'd had to leave my weekend job at the roadside coffee stand after word got back to Mom that guys had started slipping their phone numbers into my tip jar. She deemed it "inappropriate", then told me she'd worried about me getting murdered working there by myself--a worry she'd never expressed _before_ the phone numbers--and that I needed to quit. Now all my spending money came from an allowance from Dad's retirement fund, and Mom had complained when I needed to buy gas to drive Cynthia to the mall.

"You'll see me more in a few weeks," I said, going to the fridge for the can of Dr. Pepper I'd been saving for after school. Cynthia had already got to it, and had drawn a smiley face over the Post It note marked "Becca's pop". "Though I'll need to figure something out, at least part-time. 'Sister-sitting' won't look great on my resume."

"I would worry about you if you weren't Becca," Dad sighed as I sat next to him with my consolation prize of a warm Shasta. "But in some ways, I worry about you because you _are_ Becca."

"I'll be fine," I said, resting my head on his shoulder. "Worry about Cynthia."

"Oh, I do," Dad said. "And Julie. And your mom...oh, that reminds me." He dropped his voice to a whisper and spun toward me in his stool. "She was looking for you."

"Uh oh."

"She wanted you to go with her to a church thing tonight."

"Uh oh," I said again.

"She was very insistent," he added.

I gritted my teeth, thinking back, wondering what she'd volunteered me for, now.

"Did she say what it was?"

"No," he said, "but if you run now, I can pretend you were never here."

The front door slammed. "Becca? Becca!"

"Too late," Dad whispered.

I sighed. "In here!"

Mom appeared in the kitchen doorway, blond hair freshly permed, braces gleaming in the kitchen spotlights.

"There you are. Time to go!"

I didn't move. "Where?"

"Missionary evening! I told you five times."

"I...don't think you did."

"Don't be silly. Off your kiester, miss. And can you drive? My head is killing me."

#

I found Celia as soon as I walked through the church double doors. She was manning the bake sale, raising money for that summer's Vacation Bible School. I spotted a plate of her homemade lemon squares, cartoon love-hearts in my eyes, and she noticed immediately and handed me my own in a Tupperware container.

" _Thank you_ ," I said. "Also, what's happening?"

Celia shrugged. "Some missionary thing. I'm not going. Mom wants me to stay out here on the table."

I leaned in close over a plate of brownies, dropping my voice low. "I feel like I'm walking into a trap."

"Hey, how are you?" A young man had just butted into our conversation with a smile of well-practiced over-confidence. He was white (like--let's be honest--about ninety-nine percent of the people at my church), very short, and wearing a puka shell necklace and a blond, curly mullet. He grinned up at us from beneath a scant moustache, lifting a pecan sandy from one of the plates and popping it into his mouth without the slightest indication that he was intending to pay for it. "I'm Greg."

The way he said it sounded like it belonged in quotation marks--like he was giving a fake name.

"Um, hi," I said. "I'm Becca."

"Celia," Celia said, but Greg ignored her, fully turned toward me instead.

"I met Barb," Greg said, crumbs flying. "Your mom. She said you were coming to my meeting tonight?"

"Your meeting?" I said. So this was what it was all about? Greg didn't seem like Mom's usual type. He was too weather-worn, too puka-shelled, too...well, he wasn't wearing a Rolex, was he? Was she getting desperate?

"About the trip," he said, still grinning. "See you in there?"

"Um, I guess..." Because what choice did I have?

"Cool!" He reached up a hand for a high five. When I gave in and smacked his sweaty palm with mine, he exclaimed, "Radical!" and disappeared into the sanctuary.

I met Celia with twin crooked eyebrows.

"Radical," she deadpanned. "That was the free sample, by the way. I trust you'll buy some. That Noah's Ark isn't going to build itself."

My mom allowed me just enough time to buy the rest of the lemon squares before grabbing me by the elbow and guiding me into our usual seats. There weren't many people there--mostly kids from youth group, which I'd aged out of two years before. However, at the front were more young Christians than I'd seen in one place in Belleport--more young woman than men, and it looked, for all intents and purposes, like they'd been recently rescued from the middle of an Arizona desert. Most were sunburned, with hair too long and unkempt, and clothes invariably too large for them. Every single one was wearing a hemp necklace.

Greg, at the front, leaned forward and began to breathe heavily into the microphone. Intentional? I wasn't sure. I must have been grimacing, because Mom elbowed me sharply in the side.

"Good evening," Greg said.

Our reply was muted. "Good evening."

"As you hopefully already know," Greg said, "tonight, I'm here to talk to you about our mission to Mexico."

Reader, as cultured as I know you are, I suppose you may recognize the trope in films where when a character reaches a sudden and unexpected conclusion, the camera tends to zoom in on them--you can see their face change as the reality of the situation completely sets in: eyes widening, face blanching, mouth gaping open in horror. You might clearly imagine that I had exactly the same expression dawning on my own features as, at that same moment, Greg had fixed his attention precisely on me.

"Each of us has our own stories to tell," he continued, breaking his stare to turn back to the screen with the remote, sandy curls swinging behind his ears, "and we're going to give our testimonies tonight. I pray these testimonies will _move_ you to _act_. There's a clipboard that will go around at the end. I pray the Spirit will tell you to put your name on that line” –he dropped his chin and held up his hand— "in order to magnify His holy name."

In the following hour and a half, I sat very still, my backside going numb, as one after one, a person only slighter older than me came forward to the mic to recount the year they'd spent and the miracles they had worked with poor Mexican children, serving as God's hands. Mom fell asleep, but the one time I began to nod off, the Spirit had woken her just in time to rouse me with yet another elbow in the ribs. Then there were slides. At one point, Celia--whose legs must have gone numb standing at the back table for so long--slid in next to me with a sigh, before her own mother found her and corralled her back to the bake sale table like she had done something wrong. Finally, ending prayers began, and someone behind me passed the clipboard over my shoulder. I passed it on to Mom--or tried. She simply pushed it back into my hands.

"What?" I whispered. "I don't want it."

"Sssh," she said, closing her eyes again and folding her hands in her lap.

"Mom," I whispered. " _I don't want it_."

"I pray," Greg said from the front, hand outstretched to the ceiling, "that your Holy Spirit works in us tonight, Lord God. I pray that You reach out and touch our hearts, and move us to do work in your name."

"I don't want to go to Mexico," I whispered, but Mom only pressed the clipboard back into my lap.

There was no one in front of me. I was stuck until prayers were finished. I only sat staring at the list with its three names, running my fingers along the string that attached the pencil to the clip, face radiating.

"Amen," the church finally announced together, and Mom fixed her hands to my shoulders and pushed me bodily toward the front of the church. Toward Greg.

"I'm not signing up," I said, handing the clipboard back to him. "Sorry."

He took it from me, obvious confusion and strange hurt contorting his face.

"Your Mom said you really wanted to go."

I shot her a look of fury over my shoulder, but she had her back to me--she was talking to Mary Jane Sawyers, pointing to her knee where it had suddenly developed a mysterious, invisible rash.

"My mom is confused," I replied.

"I don't think so," said Greg, and he began to write in the line below the bottom name on the list--I could just make out the "B" in _Becca_.

"You're joking, right? You know if you take me to Mexico against my will, that's kidnapping."

He put his weight on his back foot and looked up at me, squinting, as though I was speaking to him in a foreign language and it was taking his mind several moments to translate.

"You know,” he said, smile edging out again, “as soon as I saw you tonight, God told me that you belonged on this trip with us."

The hairs on the back of my neck rose to attention. I'd found God had a strange habit, lately, of telling other people what I should do with my life, but had so far not bothered to get in touch directly with me.

"Isn't ninety percent of Mexico already Christian?" I asked.

His eyelid twitched. "Catholic," he said.

"I doubt I'm the person to make them Protestant."

"I already told your mom this," Greg said, writing the rest of my name on the line, "but maybe that's what would talk you over the line, too. Look, the fundraising covers the cost of health insurance. So you know, after high school, if" --he drew his tiny finger across the base of his neck-- "something happens, wouldn't it be better to be safe than sorry?"

"Do you often threaten people who don't want to sign up for your trips?"

He laughed, and I had the strange feeling that this was one of the few kinds of times that he found a woman funny.

"Your mom said you'd play hard to get," he said, finishing my sign-up with a flourish.

"Try impossible to get," I said coldly. "Thank you for your interest, _Greg_ , but no."

I turned to go, and Greg shouted at my departing back. "I'm here all week, Becca!"

"Becca?" Mom called after me as I pushed through the crowd. "Becca! Where are you going?"

"Home!" I shouted. People were turning. Staring. I didn't care. I kept walking, right out the double doors, right out into the rain, right out to the car where I climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine.

Mom pulled the passenger's side door open as soon as I shifted into reverse. Her face was red, wet, and thunderous.

"What in the H-E-double-hockey-sticks are you doing, Becca? Get your tush back in there and SIGN UP for that gosh-darned mission trip!"

"No," I said. It took every ounce of my self-control to keep my foot from lifting from the brake. I would never do it, and even if I did it would do nothing more than knock Mom very gently and very slowly off-balance, but I couldn't say the thought wasn't terribly tempting.

"You're eighteen," she said. "Single. Jobless."

"Because of you!"

"Because _I_ watch out for my family!" She looked around and behind her, suddenly aware that she might be causing a scene. She finally climbed into the passenger seat, painfully slowly, and slung her purse in her lap. Shut the door. The windows instantly steamed.

I bent over the steering wheel, seething.

"Sometimes I wonder if you want what's best for me,” I said levelly, “or if you think making me do these things will score you God points."

"Don't be ridiculous," she admonished me. She sniffed; her voice softened. "I worry about you," she said as my lips tightened into a line. "You seem... _directionless_ , Becca. What happens after graduation? No job, no husband, and come October, no health insurance. What happens if you get sick, missy? Do you think we can afford all the doctors and surgeries?" I wondered briefly what she had planned, but she blundered on. "And yet you have _no_ interest in the men I want you to meet--don't you make that face at me, young lady. They are _perfectly fine_ young men. Much better than those perverts slipping you their phone numbers in a gosh-darned _tip jar_."

I remained silent, watching the wipers slide back and forth across the windshield. I needed to calm down. I needed her to stop talking.

"I have not made plans after high school..." My voice was deathly quiet. She had to bend forward to hear me. "...because I have to look after you. And Cynthia. And Julie. And sometimes even _Dad_. I'm the only grown up in the room sometimes, and you know it."

"Becca," Mom sniffed. "If you don't go on that mission trip, I'm never speaking to you again."

"Well," I said, finally shifting into reverse, my knuckles white on the steering wheel as I dared myself to take her bait, "then at least it will be a quiet ride home."


	6. Wesson

On the whole, the rest of the week was really rather peaceful. School was a kind of quiet, winding down hum in combination with the tense thrill of upcoming graduation. Julie had recovered, and we spent Friday night in re-watching _Clueless_ without reappearing oysters. On Saturday, we took Cynthia to the mall because we all needed new swimsuits for Charlie's pool party.

...and 3X size sleepshirts to wear over them.

"Ugh," Cynthia groaned, replacing a polar bear-print sleepshirt on the rack at The Bon Marché. "What's the point of modesty if I get stuck in the pool filter and drown?"

"Didn't you know?" I said, taking the sleepshirt back off the rack and shoving it into her arms. We'd found our one-pieces; now was not the time to get picky. "If you drown while showing your shoulder blades, you'll go _straight_ to hell."

Cynthia grew wide-eyed. "I will?"

"Becca," Julie sighed, "stop scaring her."

"She's not scaring me." Cynthia threw the shirt onto the floor at the foot of the rack. "Oh Hey-zeus, is that Johnny Wesson? Wesson!"

My sister ran through the lingerie aisle and straight into a young man's side-hug.

Not only a young man. A young man in _uniform_. Full Navy whites. He removed his cap as soon as we approached, and did not seem offended when Julie and I exchanged cautious--and obvious--glances.

Cynthia didn’t miss it. "Ugh, don't be gross." She went a bit pink. "We're friends, aren't we, Wessy? Wesson and I met at the drive-in when I was there with...Cassie. It turns out that you have your favorite person in common, Becca."

I frowned at her, not knowing what on earth she was talking about.

"Who?" I said.

"Percy!" Cynthia exclaimed. "You'll finally have someone to complain to about him." She turned back to Wesson and placed a palm on his bicep. "She talks about him _all_ the time."

"Cynthia," Wesson said. His voice was gentle, and, like a gentleman, he pushed off her overly-friendly hands. "Do you think a common enemy is the best introduction?"

I lifted an eyebrow. Enemy, indeed.

"I'm Johnny," he said, offering a hand and shaking Julie's, than mine, as though he'd been trained to do it in age-order. "And enemy is a bit harsh. I don’t hold a grudge, I promise,” he said to me. “No more than he deserves, anyway. And, since Cynthia has forgotten, what are your names?"

There was something unusual about him, and it took a moment for me to realize that in his manner and his words, there was something extremely polite about him--almost Percy-ish, though without the weird accent and with some actual social grace. And the uniform? For a moment, I could ignore my mixed feelings on the military (which I wasn't allowed to express at home--Mom always blamed my "hemp-chewing, incense-burning social studies teachers" for my "increasingly ungodly" worldviews) in deference to how nicely the jacket fit Johnny Wesson across the shoulders, or how his eyes shone beneath the bill of his cap.

As requested, I introduced Julie, then myself. A few months ago, pre-Charlie, Julie and I would have been very quietly mooning over this young man right beside Cynthia. However, I knew full well that there was no man to Julie but Charlie now, so I by myself could take this moment to appreciate Cynthia's singular moment of excellent taste.

"We're going to a pool party," Cynthia said. She held up a hanger she must have grabbed on the way past--which held the tiniest bikini I had seen outside of a magazine on the top rack at the gas station. "Like my swimsuit?"

Julie grabbed for it. "Cynthia, put that back."

Cynthia ignored her and stuffed it into Julie's basket. "Do you want to come, Johnny? _Loads_ of people will be there."

"Cynthia," I said, "you can't invite people to someone else's party."

"Charlie wouldn't mind, would he?" Cynthia asked Julie, and Julie's mouth twisted--he probably wouldn't. "It's on Monday, three o'clock, six-thirty-nine Ocean View." She said it with such polish that I wondered how many other people she had invited. "You _are_ coming, aren't you Wessy?"

"Um," Johnny began, "Well, I am on leave that day...."

"Great!" Cynthia exclaimed. "And what are you doing now?"

Johnny looked down at his basket. Its sole occupant was a shrink-rapped set of underwear. "I'd rather not say it out loud."

"Come to lunch with us," Cynthia demanded. She took our basket from Julie's hand, then took Johnny's, and set them directly in the middle of the aisle. She grabbed him by the arm on one side and me on the other, and began to guide us out into the wing corridor, Julie trailing behind with our shopping bags from Waldenbooks (mine) and Sam Goody (Cynthia's--CDs Mom would throw out the window if she saw them). "Julie's buying, since she's the only one who has a job."

In the food court, Julie waited patiently with Cynthia while she decided between Sbarro and Orange Julius, while both Wesson and I bee-lined for Mrs. Powell's, which had decidedly won the food court war by pumping the paired scents of both baking bread and cinnamon into the air. Sensible Becca knew that cinnamon rolls were not lunch, but end-consumer Becca easily fell prey to sales tactics.

"I knew you had good taste the second I first saw you," Johnny said as I withdrew a five dollar bill from my wallet.

I grinned. Something about this man was making me a little giddy. "What gave it away?"

"The panda bear night shirt," he said with a _very_ becoming smile.

"Oh, sorry, that was Julie's," I said. "Mine was the puffy paint kittens."

"Even better," he said as we crept forward one place in the line. And I realized, very suddenly, that I, Becca Bailey, was flirting. With a man. In the military. "Why even have kittens on clothing if they're not puffy?"

"Why, indeed?"

"You’re not like your sister," Johnny said, changing tack so suddenly he nearly gave me whiplash.

I blinked at him and said, "Is that a bad thing?"

"Your sister is…charming," Johnny said, without even laughing. He was, I decided, extremely diplomatic. "You are, too. In a different way."

"And Julie is different again," I agreed. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Unfortunately, no," Johnny replied. "My mother had her hands full with me."

"Somehow I doubt that."

"I swear," Johnny said, waving me to the opening at the counter, "five-year-old Johnny was a monster."

It was our turn to order. If Mom were there, she would have suggested I split a cinnamon roll, so as not to adversely affect my waistline; also, if Mom were there, she would have suggested I _didn't_ split one with a young man, because someone might see us and make assumptions.

Because I was hungry, I ordered a whole one for myself, then I offered to pay for Johnny's.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. He pulled out his credit card. "I'll pay for both."

Julie and Cynthia still hadn't made it back to our agreed table--I just spotted them at the back of the line for pizza. I shimmied into the hard plastic chair and leaned back, watching Johnny slide in across from me.

"So are you going to tell me?" I asked him.

He knew exactly what I was talking about. He shot a glance over his shoulder at my sisters. "It's not a happy story."

I pulled off the soft outer ring of my cinnamon roll. "I gather few things involving Percy are."

His full lips twisted to the side. He removed his cap and set it aside. His dark brown hair was lush, if flattened by his hat, and set a lovely backdrop for the blue of his eyes.

"All right," he said. "Where should I start?"

I scooted forward and sucked cinnamon from my fingertip. "Where did you meet?"

"When we were kids," Johnny answered. "My mom was his dad's secretary. He's a good guy, Percy's dad. Always really generous with salary and bonuses...Mom never had that from anyone else. And when they sent Percy to boarding school, they offered to pay for me to go as well, the part that my scholarship wouldn't cover."

I started. I didn't know how much boarding school cost in England, but I had an idea of what it cost in Washington, and it wasn't cheap. At the same time, that explained so much...the way they both talked, their upright posture, the way they stood in a room as though they either owned it or _should_ own it. However, where Percy was stiff and severe, Johnny was warm and welcoming. While Percy gave off the impression of someone who could buy it all, Johnny struck me immediately as someone who _could_ buy it if he wanted to, but then would give it all away. "That _is_ generous."

Johnny shrugged. "Mom always put in a lot of overtime. Anyway, we always got on well, Percy and me. I thought he was a friend. Then, our last year at school, he made up these terrible stories about me."

I slid so far forward I almost slipped off my chair.

"What stories?" I asked.

"Bullying and hazing...things I barely even want to think about, never mind say out loud."

"Why would he do that?"

"Jealousy," Johnny answered straightaway, his blue eyes hard. "I'd become more popular than he was. You know how he is. Stuffy. Absolutely no sense of humor. Suddenly his friends liked me more--me, the poor kid with the single mom--and he couldn't take it."

"That's so awful."

Johnny shrugged, his lip ever-so-slightly trembling. The topic, obviously, was still sore--considering his age, I supposed the wound was rather fresh.

"So I got kicked out. I couldn't finish school. Percy's dad had even had a job lined up for me for when I got back, but with what happened...I got sent back and he wouldn't take me. And what do you do when you're seventeen, expelled, with no qualifications?" He plucked at his uniform. "The recruiters practically leaped on me at the airport arrivals."

"Good grief," I gasped. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"My word against the great William Percy's? Who was going to believe me?" Johnny had barely touched his cinnamon roll. He pried a raisin from between the swirl of dough. "I have to make the best of it. It's not all bad."

"What's not all bad?" Cynthia said, sliding in next to me with her giant slice of pizza, its corner trailing cheese on the blue Formica tabletop. "Becca's face?"

"The Navy," Johnny answered, leaning back in his chair as Julie lowered herself to sit beside him, posing very primly and upright on the edge of her seat. Johnny barely swept her a sideways glance, which I didn't know was possible for anyone to do, male or female. Instead, his eyes fixed on me across the table, as though I was the prettiest one in the room. "Your sister is pleasant company."

"Oh, don't compliment her," Cynthia admonished him. "Her head's already big enough. We're gonna have to get her a wheelbarrow to carry it around. And seriously, what could be bad about the Navy? You're around men in uniform all the time."

Johnny laughed. I watched the way his face brightened, relished the flash of his white teeth.

"That’s not the main draw for me, believe it or not,” he replied. “No, I have a lot of friends there, but some of the people I work with are assholes." Only Julie gasped at his language. The way he hissed those "S"s was--I thought--quite beautiful. "As I suppose they would be at any job."

"In what way?" I asked.

"Chauvinists." He shrugged. "You know the type. Locker room talk, but not just in the locker room...in training, in the mess, everywhere they can open their mouths. Hell, I went to an all boy's school and even _it_ wasn't that bad. Sometimes you just want to yank out the measuring tape so they can settle their arguments once and for all."

"Measuring what?" said Cynthia.

"Never mind," Johnny said hurriedly. "It's not important. Anyway." He plucked out the center of the cinnamon roll, eating the best part first. "What I'm saying is that it's not a great place for a feminist."

At that moment, if anyone looked at me closely, they may have seen a heart-shaped impression beating away beneath my dress. How often did I come across a man who wasn't afraid to call himself a feminist in Belleport? Besides Dad? Never, and Dad was just trying to make up for Mom setting my gender back four hundred years. And for it to be someone who looked like Johnny Wesson....

"In my experience," I said, face warm, "most large institutions make it difficult for anyone wanting to advance the status of women."

Cynthia sighed loudly and slumped in her chair.

"I think you're right," Johnny replied. "Cynthia told me your church is...restrictive."

"The keys to our chastity belts are locked away in the church basement," I said dryly, and Julie whispered, "Becca, don't joke." For one of the first times ever in company, I ignored her and carried on. "Our pastor can't talk about his wife without calling her 'smoking hot,' never mind that she's a talented pianist and leads housebound outreach all by herself. Our worship pastor won't pray alone with a woman because he thinks the church will assume they're having an affair. He's hired a woman to do the praying for him, but she's only a _volunteer_."

"Becca, this isn't anyone else's business," Julie said, a bit more firmly now, and I sat back, breathing hard. "And _please_ watch your volume. Stacey Wallis is only over there."

Stacey Wallis, Sunday School teacher, was indeed only three tables down from us. We all gave her a weak wave. She waved enthusiastically back, blessedly seeming not to have heard me.

"Sorry," I breathed out. "I don't have many people to vent to." Celia was my only one, and even she lost patience with me, telling me that if I was that passionate, I could stand up and do something about it. Of course, she knew I never would.

Johnny, however, just watched me with liquid eyes, taking in every word with rapt interest while at my side Cynthia played who-can-make-the-longest-cheese-string with her pizza slice.

"Well," Johnny said, fishing out another raisin and lifting it to his tongue. "The Navy has its culture, and I suppose your church has its own. Sometimes it benefits us to sit back and observe."

"Sometimes," I said. I reached the gooey center. I picked it into warm, sweet pieces. "And sometimes you have to know when to get your hands dirty."

"Oh, Becca," Cynthia snapped, "stop pretending you don't just sit there on Sunday with everyone else. And Wessy, stop flirting with my sister. She's never had a boyfriend in her life. I don't think she even _likes_ boys _."_

My face went hot. Still, I kept my composure. I was cool, calm...a confident, eighteen-year-old woman who knew exactly what she was doing, exactly what she was getting herself into.

"No, you're right," I said to Cynthia, shoulders back, head held high. "I don't like boys. I like _men_."

"Stop being so silly, you two, and eat your lunch," Julie told us, playing mom at last. "Johnny, please forgive my sisters."

"Nothing to forgive," said Johnny, leaning back in his chair and crossing his long legs beneath the table. His calf nudged my shin, a wicked contact of flesh, a temptation, a _sin_.

Our eyes met across the table.

Neither of us moved an inch.


	7. Pool Party

"Oh, would you look at this?"

Mom walked ahead of us through Charlie's side door and to the pool, carrying a box full of American flag bows. She was unusually chipper...though I suppose not entirely unusually. Memorial Day always was her favorite holiday. I think it appealed to her as a regular worshipper at the altar of sacrifice and pain.

"Charlie!" Mom exclaimed. "What a house you have. And so many people!"

Yes, there were, in fact, _so many people_. We were early to help decorate; it was only two forty-five, and still, the poolside was heaving. The pool itself was probably over-capacity, and speakers were blaring KPTS, the Station for Music, but which had gone to a commercial for hemorrhoid cream.

The day was bright, the guests an odd mixture of fully dressed church families and half-naked teens in bikinis and board shorts. I recognized only a few people from school in the grade or two below me, and Carolina standing by herself in a corner with an iced drink and an expression that made it look like she had mentally checked out some time ago. For once, I couldn't blame her. I wondered how many were Cynthia's friends, or strangers she had met at the mall.

"It seems we've gotten kind of popular," Charlie said. He appeared a bit nervous, or a bit overwhelmed--though for Charlie, the only tell was that his hair was standing straight up above his face, as though he'd run his fingers through it several times. But now, at least, Julie was here. "You look well," he told her, taking the pan of shortcakes from her arms. "Are you?"

"Very," she said, beaming at him.

"Here," Mom said, shoving her box of bows toward me. It was the first word she'd said to me since Missionary Night. "Get going."

As bade, I gently elbowed through the crowd, finding any gutter, surface, or stick-shaped thing I could possibly tie a bow to, and a tall stranger helped me put up a string of American flags over the buffet table. A few minutes in, when I was trying to tie a bow to the head of a Greek-style statue, Carolina found me.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Her voice was thick. I guessed the iced drink had more than a splash of alcohol in it.

"Decorating," I said.

"Really?" she sneered.

"Want to help?" I asked.

She walked away.

"Becca," Julie said, approaching me and taking a bow from the box to help. "There are too many people here."

"I know," I said, swatting someone aside so I could reach behind them.

"I think this is Cynthia's fault," Julie continued, chewing on a fingernail. "I feel responsible. He's so stressed out."

We shot a look behind us. Charlie was laughing at something our mother was saying, and gripping a hot dog bun so hard that it was starting to ooze through the cracks between his fingers.

"Okay," I said. I made a quick survey of the pool, judging for legality, easily spotting the tall cans of beer in small, underage hands.

I cupped my hands over my mouth.

"Hey!"

Few people turned. Charlie fumbled for the stereo; another KoolKream ad went silent.

"Hey!" I shouted again. "The cops are coming!"

"Becca, shut up!" Cynthia shouted from the pool, where she was, in fact, wearing a bikini, and not wearing her sleep shirt. "Guys, no, they're not! She's lying!"

But a minute later, the poolside was soaking, at least thirty half-full beer cans had landed in the trashcan, and then there came several shouts from the side of the house about cars blocking each other in and frustrated calls for designated drivers. Finally, a few minutes later, the pool was quieter, there was more room to move and breathe...and Officer Harley showed up with his wife and two sons. It was at that moment that Cynthia stopped trying to hit me with a wet inflatable ball.

I glanced at my watch. Three twenty-two. Wesson was nowhere to be seen.

There were still a lot of people, and I _was_ looking for a man in uniform--I wasn't sure I would recognize him without it. As a consequence, I was giving too many dark-haired men odd, lingering looks, and they were giving me too many questioning, awkward waves in return. I waved back and looked to the pool, seeing if I could spot him among the shirtless. But it was an unfruitful search. Wesson wasn't here.

Greg the Missionary, however, spotted me from across the pool and swam straight for me, splashing everyone. I watched, horrified, as he flopped out of the pool and onto the side, climbed to his feet, dripping wet, and said to me, "Hi, Becca. Have you thought about it?"

I looked at the people behind him in the pool; half were flicking water from their eyes, half were watching us, rapt, as though Greg was in the middle of a proposal. We must have made a ridiculous pair, me fully clothed, Greg with hair everywhere, for all intents and purposes looking a little like something someone had just pulled out of a drain.

"I'm not going to Mexico," I said.

He reached for my hand. I yanked it away.

"God's speaking to you, Becca. I can feel it. Don't harden your heart against Him."

"Good afternoon," came a cold, measured voice behind me. For a foolish moment, I thought--hoped--it was Johnny Wesson. We both turned to its source to find Percy standing there, dressed for an Icelandic winter in jeans and a black sweater, face clouded and severe. I shouldn't have been surprised to see him, but I was. I'd thought he would have left by now. I _hoped_ he would have left by now, especially after what Johnny had told me about his behavior at school. I'd told Julie all about it, of course, once we were home and Cynthia had been shooed up to her room. She'd been quick to defend both of them, declaring Johnny too thoughtful and friendly to lie (which, of course, was obvious), and for some reason, out of character for Percy to accuse a person of something they hadn't done. When I reminded her of the Five, she'd reminded me that Charlie wouldn't be friends with Percy for no reason. It had all been, she'd concluded, a terrible mistake.

And now he was here, cutting into our conversation-slash-harassment like it was the most natural thing in the world. Even though Percy, if gossip had traveled backward as well as it had traveled forward, was most likely the reason that Wesson wasn't here in the first place.

"Is something the matter?" Percy asked Greg, and I enjoyed, just a little, watching Greg shrink back, displaying the tiniest bit of self-awareness for what may have been the first time in his life.

"No," Greg said. "I was just talking to Becca here."

"She doesn't look interested," Percy responded--a bit rich, coming from him.

Greg opened his mouth to respond, but Percy didn't let him.

"You seem a competent swimmer," he carried on. "And one with keen eyes. Why don't you" --he dragged an empty chair to the poolside-- "be our lifeguard for the next few hours? We would be in your debt."

"I...I..." Greg looked at Percy, at me, at the empty chair, and at the pool full of people. He deflated slightly, then inflated again, wan chest puffing out in pride as the flattery of Percy's words sunk in more than the request. "I think I could do that."

"Good man," Percy said. He patted the chair and Greg sat, then Percy turned to me and said, "Becca, I'm going to the grocery store. I could use a hand."

I stared at him for five full seconds. There was the _thwack_ of the ball against the surface of the water. A shout to "pass it here, pass it here!" Percy waited for my response, hands in his pockets, watching me coolly, his foppish black curls spilling across his forehead, his lips pressed together in an expression of bored waiting.

I lifted my chin in a show of obstinacy. But, "Fine," I replied.

He pulled out his keys. "I'll drive. I've parked on the street."

I had no idea what I was doing as I walked with Percy past the crowds, around the quieter side of the house, and along the veritable stream of cars parked along the driveway. It was suddenly so blissfully quiet, the only noise the rustle of leaves and wind and the distant strains of No Doubt's "Don't Speak," before someone (undoubtedly my mother) turned it to the Christian Radio. I'd recognize the opening twangs of "Butterfly Kisses" from fifty miles. Mom had declared the song--which I had no doubt would be the song of the summer at all father-daughter Purity Balls across the country--her all-time favorite, and had already bought the CD so she'd have it to play at our weddings. Percy let out a sigh as he unlocked the passenger door of--of course--a Lexus and pulled it open for me.

"Electric windows," I said as he lowered himself into the driver's seat. I braced myself in my own seat; I didn't easily trust other drivers. I was too used to being in the car with Cynthia and my mother. "Very fancy."

"Are you making fun of me?" Percy said, a barrel of laughs as always, as he turned the key in the ignition.

"I wouldn't dare," I said. I wouldn’t make fun of him for having a car phone, either, even though, _honestly_ , he was nineteen. Could he not have sprung for a cell phone like a normal rich teenager?

He pulled out of the parking space and onto the road. I loosened my grip on the door. He was more careful, and gentler on the gas, than I thought he would be, considering the average Belleport boy couldn't go six months without wrapping his dad's car around a tree.

"I thought you wouldn't have much experience driving in Oxford," I said, trying to make conversation. "Do they even have cars there?"

"They have cars," Percy said. He hunched over the steering wheel, face about seven inches from the windshield. I needn't have worried about him being uncareful; he drove like an old man. "Most students ride bicycles."

I tried not to laugh at the mental image of him hunched the same way over a set of handlebars, peering through rain, fancy robes trailing behind him. "Do you ride a bicycle, Percy?"

After a pause, he admitted, "Yes."

I settled back in the seat, smiling to myself.

A stretch of silence languished between us.

"I think it's your turn to ask a question now," I said.

He allowed me a small turn of his head--just enough to keep him from being distracted by the road.

"About what?" There--a small spark of interest, a change in tone. He'd found the other keys in his voice, if only momentarily.

"I don't know," I said. "The weather? The party? Isn't that usually what someone talks about when it's gone quiet?"

"I like the quiet," Percy said. "That's why I volunteered to leave."

"I like parties," I replied. "Is that why you've brought me? Are you punishing me?"

To that, Percy did not answer. After a long gap in the conversation, where I alternated between watching his tight knuckles on the steering wheel and a soft rain start to fall on the pavement outside, Percy spoke.

"Do you go to the mall a lot?" he asked. His voice had taken on a strange edge again.

I met him with a confused look. "Isn't that a weird question?"

"Maybe," he replied.

I frowned. "Not often."

"So only to meet with Johnny Wesson."

Ah, there we were. Gossip never stayed stagnant for long--of course word would have gotten back to Percy. Stacey Wallis probably had a phone tree at home, and knew exactly who from church to call when she spotted me in the mall food court with a young man in uniform.

"You know him, do you?" I asked.

"I think you know I do."

"Yes," I said. "He told me a very disheartening story."

"I'm sure he did," Percy replied.

"And you don't feel in the slightest way sorry for him?" I straightened in my seat, regretting having climbed into this car with him--that strange, single moment of carelessness. "Are you really that callous?"

"Yes," Percy said. After a moment, he added, "Wesson haunts me wherever I go."

"Considering he's on base here and you're on vacation, it sounds more like _you're_ haunting _him_."

Percy's expression darkened as he turned on the windshield wipers; more rain began to fall, speckling his features.

"One can only hope."

#

I'd always thought you could tell a lot about someone from how they acted in a grocery store. I learned early the reason Julie always volunteered to stay home with Dad rather than accompany Mom on a trip to the store--Mom took to every new item like it was a book she wanted to buy, and would take an entire afternoon shuffling up and down every aisle, reading the information on the label of every unfamiliar product. Dad, for his part, always refused to go anywhere but the convenience store--Mom once made the mistake of sending him to buy laundry detergent; he'd come straight home empty-handed in protest at the excess of choice.

Percy from the outset was efficient, no-nonsense, and cold. The girl at the baskets was as effusive and cheerful as the staff usually were here--smile in place, and with, I realized, what must have been a very strong American accent to someone more used to standard British English. "I hope you have a really nice day," she wished Percy, handing him the basket with moon-eyes in place. She apparently had a weakness for the tall, dark, and emotionally stunted.

"Thank you," Percy replied absently as he unfolded the shopping list. "Where can I find hot dogs?"

The girl pointed behind her. His voice, apparently, had evoked a different reaction in her, and she was suddenly apoplectic with longing. I rolled my eyes. If I heard him say "hot dogs" with that same precise enunciation again, I was liable to punch him.

"In the back," the girl said, her smile wider, tears of joy pooling in her large eyes.

"Thank you," Percy said, and I followed him with the shopping cart at a clip through the cracker aisle.

"Do they always do that?" I asked, rolling behind him as he carried on straight ahead, reading from Charlie's crumpled shopping list like it was a novel he couldn't put down.

"Do what?" he asked, grabbing two boxes of graham crackers and throwing them into the cart.

"Throw their panties at you."

He looked up at me with a furrowed brow.

" _No_."

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed," I scoffed.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Marshmallows."

He carried swiftly on down the aisle. Trailing behind, I was coming to the conclusion that his Grocery Manner, as I had come to call it, was almost... _amusing_. It was difficult to match up this perception of Percy--aloof, helpful, and precise--with the vengeful Percy of Johnny Wesson's memories. I almost wanted to bring up the subject again, just to see how he'd react. It just seemed so strange that he didn't show the slightest hint of shame over what he'd done to Johnny. No pride, either, besides his usual pomp, but...I didn't know. I couldn't put a finger on it. He was, as ever, far too guarded.

We arrived at the meat fridge.

"Charlie didn't write how many hot dogs to buy," Percy said, squinting at the list as though to make out an invisible number.

I looked down at the fridge. We obviously weren't the first to arrive in a Memorial Day Emergency.

"All of them," I said.

"That seems excessive."

I slid the lid open. Cool air burst out, making my hairs stand on end. "Seriously," I said. "I know how much those people can eat. We're buying all of them."

After that, it was sauerkraut, ketchup, mustard, and _all_ of the buns. We wheeled into the line at the single open cash register. Percy surveyed the cart, undoubtedly tallying up the total in his head like the businessman he'd been raised to be, while internally, I knew there was no way I could even offer to pay half.

"There are too many people at this party," Percy sighed, prodding a pack of hot dog buns with a long finger.

"There _do_ tend to be people at parties," I replied. "That’s the point."

"You're lucky," he said, "to be so comfortable around strangers."

"Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet," I chirped, and he scoffed, unamused. "Honestly," I carried on. "Remember just a few short weeks ago when I was just a girl at a church you didn't want to go to, and now we're here, at the grocery store. Together."

A strange moment of silence followed.

"An odd turn of events," Percy finally agreed, as though he hadn't been the one to invite me. Instead of expanding on this _odd turn of events_ , he turned to examine a copy of a low-market tabloid above the conveyor belt. He added a box of Tic Tacs to our shopping and began flipping through a few pages on whether Big Foot was actually Elvis in a Sasquatch costume.

Percy pulled away from the tabloid and stuffed his hands into his pockets. We shuffled down the length of the belt together. This was nothing like waiting in line with Wesson.

Finally, it was our turn. The checkout girl flirted with Percy, and I began to wonder if "I like your accent," had become as common a phrase to him as "How are you?" or "How about those Mariners last night?" And of course, Percy, oblivious to any flirting, apologized profusely when she asked him if he had any coupons.

Fortunately, he did not ask me to pay, and I stood there with my hands in my pockets, gazing up at the overhead strip lights as he pulled a wad of cash out of his wallet.

Just as we lifted the last paper bag into the cart, readying to leave, Percy bent over the check-out stand and said, low enough so the girl had to lean toward him but loud enough so I could hear: "Are you being paid time and half today?"

The girl blinked at him, pink and confused. "Yes," she said.

"Good," Percy said. He began to fold his wallet away.

"I get off at six," she said, eyes widening hopefully.

"Great," Percy said, looking up with an odd, polite smile. "Well done. Have a good day."

"What--" I began as soon as we exited the store into bright and blinding daylight. The rain clouds had vanished. All that remained with a brilliant sky a freshly scrubbed blue.

He interrupted me immediately. "I'd rather not add extra guilt to an already unpleasant day," he said. "People should be at home with their families on a holiday. And if they're not, they should at least be paid extra for it."

"I never thought of you as a union man," I said.

"I'm surprised you've thought of me at all," he said. He threw me his keys. I caught them. "Take a seat," he said. "I'll pack the car."

The ride home was, of course, silent, and markedly more confusing than the ride there. I felt like I'd left Ocean View with one man and returned with several. It was impossible to resolve the multiple Percys I'd seen today in my head--Stoic Percy, Vengeful Percy, Bored Percy, Boring Percy, Resourceful and Useful Percy, Oblivious Sex God Percy--with the young man who hunched over his steering wheel like he was navigating a blizzard. I had a hard time imagining him plotting against Wesson, but I was coming to realize that I had a hard time imagining Percy doing anything; I was beginning to find him rather unpredictable, if still repulsive.

My interest was, however, not enough to stoke conversation. I wanted to know more about Wesson, and Charlie, and Carolina, and even _him_ , to a very small degree, but I knew that any questions would be met with No Trespassing signs. So instead, I said nothing. It was becoming a habit.

A normal person would have turned on the radio to fill the silence, but Percy seemed to relish the awkwardness, and he didn't speak once except to ask me to pull down my visor. When we arrived, I helped him take the bags from the trunk, and we walked back to the party together, where Charlie, at the barbecue, was completely surrounded by a crowd of almost frothingly hungry children.

"Thank the Lord!" he exclaimed, spotting us, and he and Julie descended, frantically splitting open hot dog wrappers with their teeth as though they were at risk of being eaten alive by the swarm.

I made sure they had enough hands on deck and left them to it. Celia found me immediately. She looked confused, and perhaps a little suspicious. She was undoubtedly wearing a swimsuit, but under board shorts and a worn Disneyland T-shirt. Her curly black hair was pushed back with a pair of sunglasses, freckles standing out on her round cheeks, mole disappearing into a dimple of concern.

"Were you at the grocery store with Percy?" she murmured, tugging me into a quiet place behind a hydrangea bush.

"Um." Why was I blushing? I had no reason to blush, except, perhaps, for embarrassment at having been seen with him. "Yes?"

She tilted her head to one side, curls swinging like a pendulum. "Why?"

Behind her, Percy disappeared into the house. We wouldn't see him for the rest of the barbecue.

I chewed my lip. "I don't have the slightest idea."


	8. A Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to those who have read this so far, and especially those who have commented. I actually haven't written a word in months, and your kind words are really encouraging and make me want to take to the keyboard again. Thank you.

Johnny Wesson called my house that Friday.

His first words, after polite pleasantries ("Hello. How are you? How is your family? Did you have a good Memorial Day?"--civilities that despite the same schooling had failed to imprint on Percy's brain), immediately transitioned to a profuse apology.

"I'm really sorry I didn't go to the party," he said as I coiled the curly cord of the phone around my index finger. "I was planning to. I'd packed my swimsuit and everything. But I got into the car and I just--"

He went quiet, and I finished for him, a small ache growing in my chest.

"You couldn't do it," I said.

"I couldn't," he said. "You'd think being in the military would make me brave, but I can't even face up to Percy."

"If it helps," I said, "it wasn't the best party I'd ever been to, despite the efforts of all involved." Part of me wanted to tell him about the grocery store trip, and Percy's odd behavior, but a larger part of me thought he wouldn't take the admission well.

"I'm sorry," he said. "And sorry to hear it. And mostly, I'm sorry to have missed seeing you again."

I met eyes with my reflection in the fridge at the other end of the kitchen. I was glad I was alone at home--Julie at work, Cynthia helping at AWANAs, Mom at Jazzercise, and Dad, well, who knew?--so no one else would be able to see me blush.

"I did look for you," I said, "and only to be disappointed."

"Ask my mother," Johnny said, but with warmth rather than bitterness, "I live to disappoint."

"You're lucky," I replied. "My mom always introduces me as, 'Not as snobby as she looks.'"

Wesson laughed at that--a proper, full-bellied guffaw. The sound of it made me feel warm inside, like soft, spreading honey.

"All right," he said. "You win. You have it worse."

A brief silence followed, but it wasn't uncomfortable, and it didn't carry on, seeming without end. Instead, it was almost...electric. I knew I was waiting for something good.

And sure enough, Wesson said, his voice lower, as though he was telling me a secret, "I didn't just call to apologize."

I leaned against the kitchen counter, winding the cord around my hand. "Oh?"

"No," he said. "I'm just wondering when we might go out on a date."

I was suddenly smiling so hard my face hurt. I could hear him doing the same on the other end of the line.

"Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to date," I said. "I am only allowed to _court._ "

"Well, then," Wesson said, so unbothered that I was sure he had prepared for this. "Would you like to go _courting_ , then?"

"Yes," I said. I had wrapped the cord so tight around my hand that my fingers were starting to turn purple. "I would like that very much."

"When?" he asked.

"Tomorrow?"

"I'm on duty," he sighed. "Monday?"

I hesitated. "I have school."

There was a slight pause. He _did_ know I was still in school, didn't he? Granted, it was only for another week. But it would be understandable if he wanted to wait. He wasn't much older than I was, but I imagined it must feel strange, for all intents and purposes being a full adult and asking out someone still in high school who lived with her parents.

"It's not meant to rain Monday," he said. "We can make an afternoon of it after you get out. Are you free?"

"Let my check my calendar." I stared off into the middle distance for a brief moment. "Yes, I'm free."

He laughed. "When are you graduating, anyway?" he asked.

"Next Saturday," I said.

"So close," he said. "The adult world awaits you."

"As much courting as a girl could possibly want."

"Better prepare yourself, Bailey," he said. "I'm going to court your socks off."

#

I had a secret.

I'm not sure it was a particularly _juicy_ one. Though I was sure the ladies at church would love it (ice-hearted Becca caving into a charming young man at last), courting was something quite run-of-the-mill. It was only a first meeting. There would be no exchange of promise rings, no introduction to the parents. This was a test. A toe dipped in the water of romantic life. I had no idea what would await me beneath the surface, but I couldn't wait to see what it was.

And I could not stop smiling.

"Did someone drug you?" Cynthia asked after church on Sunday (Charlie was there, Percy and Carolina weren't; we lost Julie for the whole of the service). "Why are you... _happy_?"

"No reason," I said. "And your bra is showing through your shirt."

"I know," sniffed Cynthia. "Seriously, though. Stop it. You're creeping me out."

My cheer lasted straight into Monday, melding with the happy, excited buzz of the upcoming--I couldn't call it a date-- _outing_. Julie and I shared the bathroom mirror in the morning before work and school, ignoring Cynthia's frantic knocking, as we did our hair (neatly, not ostentatiously, as befitted a young lady of good morals) and applied a single layer of Lip Smackers--cherry cola.

"I'm not going to be home after school today," I told her levelly, trying to play it cool, but Julie's attention was caught--she looked sharply at my face in the mirror, blue eyes curious.

She allowed a small, gracious smile. "You're meeting with Johnny Wesson, aren't you?"

My pink face was all she needed in answer.

"I knew it!" she said. "I knew he was going to ask you."

"It's only Frisbee golf," I said.

" _Only,_ " Julie said. "Soon he will be _only_ your boyfriend, then--"

I shushed her, aware that Cynthia was probably still listening outside the door. "You sound like Mom."

"Oh, Becca, I'm just so pleased for you," she said, gently squeezing my shoulder. "He seems really nice. And very..." She hesitated, ruminating on the most polite word.

"Hot?" I said.

She shrugged. "I don't think anyone is good-looking except Charlie, now. Though _objectively_ , Johnny Wesson is...pleasing to the eye."

I smiled, quite smug. I couldn't help it. I spent so much time trying not to care what other people thought about me, but it was just so...so _satisfying_ to have another woman approve of my taste in men. Especially since that woman was the one I trusted more than anyone else in the world.

"How is Charlie?" I asked. "You two seem joined at the hip."

She sighed, popping her chap stick away. "He's so amazing. I'm dreading him going back to Stanford in September."

"You still have a few months," I said.

"It doesn't seem long enough."

"No," I agreed. "You're right. Especially because you guys are moving soooooo slooowly."

Outside, Cynthia scraped the door with her fingernails. "Come ooooon, guys. Pleeeease."

"That's what courting is, Becca," Julie said, ignoring her--Cynthia just wanted privacy so she could spend a half hour combing through the dirty illustrations in Mom's copy of the _Family Book of Medicine_. Julie slicked back a few fly-aways into her ponytail. "It's making sure it's built to last."

"There's built to last," I said, "then there's aged eighty and still going out on group dates. Hey," I added with sudden curiosity, "do you know if Percy is still around?"

"I think so," Julie said. "Why?"

"Just wondering how hard I'll have to work to avoid him."

"I am GOING to PEE on the CARPET!" Cynthia shouted, and Julie finally moved to unlock the door. Cynthia burst in, looked us up and down, and said, "A half hour for _that_?" then shoved us out of the bathroom and slammed the door behind us.

#

Wesson looked just as nice out of uniform as he did in it.

(Hold on, reader; let's not get ahead of ourselves).

We met fully clothed in the parking lot of Belleport Centre ( _sic_ \--Belleport loves its airs, graces, and European spelling). I drove in to find him waiting for me, leaning up against the trunk of a blue Honda Civic in a black button-down shirt and jeans. The effect was striking, and suddenly, I felt very lucky that he was waiting here for _me_.

It was a very strange feeling to have, and made my brain start misfiring in a way I hadn't felt since Sasha Ramonhov in tenth grade (silent, handsome, spent every lunch period reading fantasy novels in the school library. I mourned for weeks when his family moved to Tacoma). I...I think I had a _crush_.

"Hello," Johnny said, standing up straight as I approached--if he had had a hat on, I was sure he would have doffed it. "You look nice."

I looked down at my dress and boots, flicking out the skirt to the sides. "This old thing?" I grinned up at him. "You, too."

"This is my courting shirt, I've decided," he said, looking down and adjusting the collar, as though it needed to be straightened any more. "It's also the only clean button-down I own."

He smiled at me, and it struck me then, despite his joking, how precise he was, how... _disciplined_. Where Percy was careful and well-groomed, it seemed entirely for his own benefit, to soothe his own anal-retentiveness. Wesson seemed almost too big for the confines, like his personality was struggling to break through the box that the Navy had built for him.

Still, he was polite as ever, with all the good humor and charm of someone born with the qualities. He carried the Frisbees and offered his other arm. I took it. We walked together to the starting point of the first hole, my hand resting gently in the crook of his elbow. As a young woman often spared the touch of the opposite sex, I could feel with a certain keenness every brush of his torso against the back of my arm.

"So," he began as we strolled together without hurry beneath huge pine and spruce trees, in and out of the dappled shade across the grass. "This courting business..."

"Oh, no," I said, wishing I hadn't brought it up, even if it was a joke (and I still wasn't entirely sure it was). "Please, let's not."

"I'm curious," he said. "What's the difference?"

"Misogyny," I said.

He gave a short, humorless laugh. "I don't think that's one thing dating lacks."

"I know," I sighed (as if I did know). "I get frustrated, that's all. And if anyone asks, this is a "group outing" and our Frisbee partners are a hole ahead of us. I have a reputation to maintain."

"You've never been on a date before," he said--curiously, not mockingly.

"Well, in eighth grade I "went out" with Henry Van Hoebeek for an entire church lock-in." I sucked on my lip. "So the answer is no. You?"

He smiled demurely. "One or two."

"Who were they?"

He gave a laugh of surprise. "Do you always interrogate your dates?"

"This isn't a date," I reminded him. "Your turn to ask me a question. Not about courting."

"Fine," he said. "I'll think of one worthy. In the meantime--" He handed me my Frisbee--navy blue. He kept the hot pink one for himself. A flag above our head flapped vigorously: _Hole #1--_ which struck me as odd, as as far as I could remember, the goal wasn't a hole in the ground but a wire rack bolted to a tree. I supposed that wasn't as punchy. "Ladies first," Wesson said with a grand, chivalrous flourish.

I curtsied. Aimed. I had no idea of the direction of the hole. I threw it in a fairly straight line. It bounced off a tree and landed five yards from my feet.

"I did that on purpose." I smiled fondly at him. "Just to make this time last longer."

"Good Lord," he said with such warmth that I was willing to overlook the blasphemy. "I was wrong. You _are_ just as much of a flirt as your sister."

I grinned, feeling brave and strangely powerful. Is this how Celia felt when she kissed Micah Ford? I felt a sudden rush of guilt and sorrow for having ruined that for her.

"My sister's a flirt," I said. "I, Mr. Wesson, do not flirt. I _ensnare_."

He took his turn, but he was laughing so hard his Frisbee landed two feet in front of mine.

"Talking _between_ throws now, not during," he told me. "Otherwise we'll be here until after dark. And I have plans for sunset."

"That sounds ominous. You know my sister knows where we are."

"Which one?"

"Julie."

"Good. Cynthia's given me the impression that she'd be fine with me bumping you off as long as she got your room."

"Yeah, she's said. Your throw."

We took our next turns--better this time, though I still wasn't certain where the hole was. As was a common problem in Washington, there were too many trees, and the light was always shifting as clouds rolled in and out of the sky above us, taking turns blocking out the sun. By the time my eyes had adjusted to the brightness, the clouds would move in once more.

Still, I was the first to land my Frisbee in the hole.

Wesson gave me a high five. I clutched my fingers over the lingering warmth.

"I'm not keeping track of my score," I realized.

"Me neither," he said. He tossed his own Frisbee in after mine. "Why don't we skip straight to the sunset part?"

I was intrigued, and agreed. We went back to the parking lot and I stood aside as he rummaged through his trunk. The wind was picking up, blowing in from the coast, chilly and cutting. He offered me a wadded-up Seattle Mariners sweatshirt and I took it gratefully. When I pulled it on, the cuffs fell past my fingertips.

He unearthed a picnic basket and a blanket from beneath a set of hiking boots and two issues of _GQ_.

"Up for a walk?" he asked.

"Always," I said. Usually, I loved to walk and read, but I got honked at too many times by drivers panicked that I'd step out in front of them. It wasn't considered safe to walk the trails by myself, so my outings were limited to either when Julie had time, or when Mom wanted me to take Cynthia out, like one might exercise a dog.

We took off down the North Point trail, quiet for a moment until I said, "Would I spoil it if I said I knew where we were going?"

Wesson looked at me sideways. "No, you don't."

"Deception Point?"

Wesson popped his lips and kicked a pebble down the trail.

"I...thought it was a little-known secret."

"I've lived in this town for eighteen years," I said. "There are no secrets. Take all the girls there, do you?"

"Three or four," he said again, and I met him with a raised eyebrow.

"Three or four? I thought you'd only dated one or two."

He cleared his throat, blushing charmingly. "I was courting the other ones."

I gave him a push in the arm. He pushed me playfully back.

And then we were in a bush--a foot clear of the poison ivy--laughing, and then I was on the ground, and Johnny Wesson was kneeling on the grass next to me, basket and blanket forgotten on the trail.

And we had stopped laughing.

And his hand was beneath my chin.

And his eyes had locked with mine.

And I could feel his breath on my lips.

"Is kissing against the rules of courting?" he murmured.

I caught his collar and pulled him closer.

"Yes," I whispered, closing the distance between us. "But this isn't courting. This is a date."

#

Wesson was right to bring his many, many dates here.

Deception Point did not, contrary to popular belief, get its name from the many boys and their attempts to get into girls pants from this viewpoint over the water. It had earned its name from its clever trail up--trees and ferns as far as you could tell, far longer than any trail should be, until it spit you out on the edge of a cliff. It wasn't just any cliff, but it was _white_ \--a strange little geological quirk--and below was the only place I'd ever seen in this state where the water wasn't blue, nor green-grey, but turquoise, like we'd suddenly arrived on a tropical island. Rumor was that the local tourist board was pumping blue dye into the outlet pipes that fed the bay, but Celia assured me, disappointingly and at length, that it was perfectly explained by the natural mineral content of the water.

It was not yet sunset, and we were the only people here on the chalky outcrop. Wesson has gone quiet, a bit thoughtful, as he spread our blanket out on the rock.

I was not thoughtful. I was a bundle of nerves and worry, alternating between the tang of guilt at having kissed someone, and the desire to do it again.

 _Am I that bad a kisser?_ I thought, drawing out the food he'd packed for us--sandwiches, chips, sparkling cider with plastic wine glasses. _Have I spoiled the illusion? Perhaps the untouched goods aren't so enticing once they've been tasted and found lacking_.

I entertained the idea of voicing my insecurities, but I was no longer feeling brave. My lips still tingled and tasted of spearmint. I hadn't completely missed the poison ivy--it never affected me badly, but my left arm was starting to itch.

I resolutely ignored it and sat down next to Johnny at a chaste distance, sighing at the view over the water.

"Yes," he said, "all the girls do that."

"Oh, shut up," I laughed. I knocked him with my shoulder, and he gently knocked me back.

Then he went quiet again.

I tried to appreciate the silence for a brief while. Living in the house I did, with the family I had...I wasn't accustomed to periods of no one talking. At any other time, if I were by myself, I would have appreciated the respite. But Wesson's silences were far more torturous than Percy's. I knew that Percy only intended to make me uncomfortable, and Johnny was someone who had professed to enjoy another person's company and the conversation that ensued. It was impossible to think now that I hadn't...I don't know, bitten his lip, or insulted him, or maybe he, too, had been attacked by the poison ivy and was also trying to keep himself from an unflattering attempt at a scratch.

I summoned up all my remaining courage.

"Have I done something wrong?" I asked.

"No," he said, almost too quickly. He looped his arms around his knees.

"But...something's wrong," I guessed.

"Yes," he said, and I felt, quite literally, like my heart was sinking--down the hollow of my ribs, into my stomach, down into the picnic blanket past our spread out hands and into the rock and water below.

"That was my first kiss," I blurted out. "I'm sure I'll get better at it. All things take practice--"

"Becca." Wesson stopped me with a hand on my arm. Before I could take hold of it, he pulled it away.

He looked up at me from beneath his lashes, his sharp cheekbones heightening the interest in his eyes.

"I really like you," he said.

My heart was back, thumping hard against my ribcage, pumping blood through my hands and into my hot face. It wasn't the kiss. It wasn't bad. Or at least not bad enough to send him running.

"Well," I replied, "that _is_ a problem. And unfortunately" --I blushed-- "I like you, too."

He stretched back, crossing his long legs at the ankle. "I lied to you."

A beat passed. I sucked on my lip, stomach now plummeting to where my heart had been.

"Should I guess, or...?"

"About the courting," he carried on at last. "As much as I would love to see you as often as possible after you graduate, I'm being shipped out."

I blinked at him. "What?"

"The Navy," he said. "I'm going to Italy."

"Oh." I leaned back up on my elbows, squinting out to sea, testing my feelings about this and not quite sure what they were. "When?"

"Friday."

The day before my graduation. I'd hoped he might come to my celebration dinner at the Cliffhouse. I'd asked Mom to book an extra place, waving away her curiosity by telling her it was for a Junior friend from school.

"How long?" I said.

He shrugged. "Six months?"

Six months. Not much ever changed in six months, not in Belleport. Julie would still be here, working at Little Bells Daycare, spending hours every night on the phone to Charlie. Cynthia would continue to walk on the right side of the fine line between class clown and dropout single mother. Dad would move on from model trains to remote controlled helicopters. Mom would buy out the entirety of Joanne Fabrics and blame Dad when there was no money left for their anniversary trip to Palm Springs. I might find a job, or I might not, or instead fill my days with chauffeuring Mom to doctor’s appointments and reading my way through the public library.

But for Wesson, I imagined a lot could happen in six months. He must have met so many drastic life changes at extremely short notice in his young life--from suddenly finding he'd have his tuition paid for at a top English boarding school, to Percy turning on him, to being expelled from that same boarding school, only to end up here, enlisted, seemingly against all his wishes.

And we...we'd only met days ago. Would I just be another girl he'd brought to Deception Point, or would I become a constant--someone to occupy his mind while exploring the Italian Coast and the beauty--landscape and human--that it had to offer?

"I don't suppose I'd fit in your suitcase?" I asked.

"Probably not," he said. "I promise, Italy's not as good as it sounds."

"Oh, I'm sure," I said, trying to keep a sudden hurt from my voice. "It's not known for its food or its romance or its history or anything. Nothing anyone would miss--"

"You have this," Wesson said, gesturing to the blue water. He laughed wryly. "And your sisters to keep you company."

"You're really not good at this comforting business, are you?"

His answering smile was a bit sad.

"Write to me?" he said, reaching for the apple cider and popping the cork with the finesse of someone used to opening bottles. "I'd like to hear your thoughts on the adult world and all its problems."

"I'll write," I said. I lifted my glass. He poured mine, then his. "But I can't promise it will be very interesting."

"Everything you say is interesting," he replied.

He lifted his glass, and I lifted mine. We clinked rims.

I drained my glass and set it aside. He did the same, then slung his warm, heavy arm around my shoulders and pulled me close.

I rested my head on his shoulder. We watched the sea. The sun was starting to set in the west. The sky was turning peach, purple, and orange--all the colors of Cynthia's favorite flavor of yogurt.

"Am I a bad kisser?" I asked at last.

He turned to look at me, taking my face in his hands.

"Can’t remember," he said, smiling as we leaned in close. "Remind me."


	9. Graduation

There were few times my family could all be in the same room at the same time, never mind all clapping and cheering the same thing. It was even rarer that the thing they were cheering was me.

"You've done it, Becca," my Aunt Bernice said thickly into her glass of red wine--mostly gone already. "Well done. We knew you could do it."

"Yes, yay, Becca. You're so smart. Yay you," Cynthia deadpanned, then went back to whispering loudly in my cousin Kat's ear about how flat my hair was from my graduation cap. Kat, who was a freshman in high school and had Julie's good nature but Cynthia's lack of common sense, giggled, then flushed pink and hid her face in her hair. Cynthia blew me a kiss. I knew my sister was pleased for me, deep down. Besides, as far as she was concerned, my graduating was one step closer to my mythical moving out and her commandeering of my room. And I knew that one of my presents--there was an entire table of them--was from her. The Lisa Frank wrapping paper was a dead giveaway.

Kat's older sister Maya met me with a "Good evening," which was her version of noisemakers and a shower of confetti. I moved to pat her on the shoulder, though better of it, and slipped into the empty chair beside her. She went back to trying to balance the salt shaker on its side.

Julie sat primly beside me in her blue Purity Sunday dress, while Celia arrived and leaned in to hug me across Julie before settling in beside her. With everyone seated--with an empty chair at the end--and the scent of waffles drifting in the air, Dad passed me the menu.

"Anything you want," he said, as though that wasn't always an option with Dad. He knew I would head straight to the Breakfast for Dinner section at the back. "You only graduate high school once."

"Unless you fail," Maya said blankly, looking pleased with herself as the shaker stood diagonally, suspended on a single grain of salt. "Then you get to do it twice. Or three times if you fail again."

"I haven't failed," I said. I looked at my family--at their smiling faces in the warm yellow glow of the candles. Behind them, the entire cafe was dimly lit but sparkling with strings of white light. I tried to embed these faces in my memory. I knew I would rarely see them so happy again. "But if I have, at least I'll get to come back here."

"Everything on here sounds so fattening," Mom murmured at the menu from between Dad and her sister. "I wonder if they do a reduced fat blue cheese."

"You don't need to lose weight, dear," Dad said.

Celia muttered something--I glanced sideways to find her studying the salad section in earnest.

"So, Becca," Aunt Bernice butted in once the waitress had taken orders. From the swiftness of her voice, I could tell she'd been holding this back for hours. "What's next?

Unlike my mother, my aunt was more practically-minded. If it wasn't for the older sister they never talked about, Bernice would definitely be the black sheep of the family. Where my mother often joked that she had gone to college for an MRS degree (I still wasn't sure what she actually majored in, though I had vague impressions of dashed dreams of becoming a TV weather girl), Bernice had gone to study architecture, and my grandmother had given up all hope of her ever marrying and giving her grandchildren when she met my Uncle Bill at the advanced maternal age of thirty-one. Both Maya and Kat had been meticulously planned, down to their birth months of September so that they would be the oldest in their grades and take advantage of the accompanying benefits of maturity and better performance (whether that worked was yet to be proven).

"I'm not sure," I said. I wished the food had arrived. That would have suppressed any awkward questions, at least for a while. "I'm looking for a job. Maybe at a bookshop or the library. Or I could go back to LatToGo, I guess."

"No, you're not," said Mom.

"Why did you even take AP classes if you're not going to college?" Maya asked.

"Because she doesn't like being in classes with people stupider than her," Cynthia said. "Do you, Becca?"

"I might go eventually," I said, ignoring her. "I haven't really decided yet."

"Better decide soon," Aunt Bernice said, in a perfect echo of my teachers and counsellors for the past two years. "The longer you wait, the harder it is to go back."

"Oh, Becca doesn't need to go to college," Mom said. "Do you, Becca? You won't get anything from it except for a mountain of debt. I think you're being very sensible in considering other options. Bill Gates dropped out of college, didn’t he?"

“Yes, Mom,” I said. “I am definitely the next Bill Gates.”

“Well, you can certainly _marry_ the next Bill Gates.”

I looked to Celia and Julie, but they were whispering to each other and completely ignorant of my silent pleas for help.

"There will be time for marrying Bill Gates later," Dad announced, so loudly that the entire table quieted and more than a few neighboring diners turned to look at us. He clenched his jaw and exhaled through his nose. "Let poor Becca enjoy her dinner. I'm sure she'll have the full inquisition soon enough."

 _Thank you_ , I mouthed at Dad. He smiled at me, pulled a crayon from the pot, and began coloring in a corner of Cynthia's placemat.

At that point, conversation fortunately turned away from my nebulous future and to other things. Julie was quiet, as was usual, but so was Celia--I checked in with them before the food came, and again before dessert, and both times, both insisted they were fine. Still, it was becoming rather lonely on this side of the table by myself, and bewildering after an entire day of attention on me--in my cap and gown, Honor Roll cords swinging from around my neck, tassel dangling in front of my face and tickling my nose. The applause as I crossed the stage and received the paper that sealed off the last part of my childhood. The camera flashes and the cheers.

Not for the first time, I wished I had an answer for them. I wished I knew what I wanted. And in many small ways, I _did_ know what I wanted. I _did_ want to go to college. I _did_ want to sign in blood on the dotted line and rack up thousands of dollars in debt I'd probably never be able to pay off. I wanted to share a room with strangers and go to bars and poetry readings and wear black turtlenecks and come back to Belleport a little older and a little more experienced than the Becca who had left it. I wanted to go to a church that allowed women near the pulpit. I wanted to fly to Italy and surprise Wesson and kiss him on the beach at sunset.

But a Becca who left the way I wanted to leave never would be able to come back. I loved Belleport. I did. I loved its beaches and its trails and its irrationally high church-to-person ratio. I loved that the Hemp and Tarot shop was right next to the Christian bookstore. I loved that other people vacationed here, but I got to live here. Most of all, I loved my family, in spite of everything, and I knew they would fall to pieces without me. The moment Charlie went back to college, Julie would be preyed upon by oyster salesmen and church-pervs. Cynthia would get knocked up on a youth group camping trip. Mom and Dad would bicker without me there to mediate, and Mom would take to her bed and not come out again, because her daughters, in spite of everything she had done for them, had betrayed her. If I stayed, I could hold them all together, if only just. If I left...

"Are you okay?"

I snapped to attention, but I should have known from the warmth in Cynthia's voice that she was talking to Julie and not me. I looked to my older sister and realized, from the redness to her eyes and the puffiness of her face, that no, Julie wasn't okay. And I didn't think she had been all day.

Julie straightened and rubbed at her cheek with the back of her hand. "I'm fine," she said. She braved a quivering smile and leaned toward Kat and Cynthia. "Tell me what you two are going to do in Disneyland."

"Are you sure you're okay?" I tried to ask Julie, but Maya cut across me.

"I don't want to go to Disneyland," she said flatly. "Becca should go instead."

We had never been the best of friends, my cousin and I. That said, I wasn't sure that Maya was best of friends with anyone, nor would she ever want to be. So to say that her interjection surprised me was an understatement--and whether or not she wished to give me a free vacation or saddle me with duties she didn't want was currently up in the air.

I blinked at her. "What?" I said.

"You should go," she said. "I don't want to go. I'll just end up in charge of Kat and Cynthia all day and they'll leave me on my own at Splash Mountain." Ah, so it was the latter. "I want to stay home."

"Oh, Maya, would you stop?" Aunt Bernice said. "Quit pretending you aren't looking forward to the teacup ride."

"I want to stay _home_ ," Maya insisted.

"Becca can't go," Mom cut in. "She has plans."

"Mom," I said, "We've been over this Mexico thing already."

Celia made a noise and stole a crayon from the plastic pot.

"I know," sniffed Mom. "You're going somewhere else."

I frowned at her, immediately suspicious that she had signed me up for a mission trip to Guatemala, instead.

"Celia," Mom said, "could you pass Becca's presents over? The green envelope first. Thank you, dear. Becca, this is from your father and me."

Everyone watched me as I took it from her. I looked at it carefully, turning it over in my hands. There was no giveaway on what it might be, except for an embossed _E_ on the back flap.

"Open it," Dad urged me.

I slid my finger beneath the flap and lifted out a piece of glossy card.

It was a gift certificate. For the Emerald-on-Sea.

Three nights.

At Percy's hotel.

"We thought it might be a nice retreat for you," Dad said with a sedate smile. "An opportunity to go away on your own for a few days, do some reading away from the hustle and bustle."

"I-I--" I stammered, not sure what to say...extremely thankful, and extremely apprehensive. How much had this cost them? " _How_?"

"Charlie was able to get us a very good deal," Mom said.

"Excuse me," Julie said, and she stood up so quickly her chair nearly fell over. She wound through the other tables and disappeared out onto the deck.

"Julie?" I called after her. I looked to my family, looked to the green envelope. I set it on the table with a grateful pat. "Thank you. Truly. Be back in a moment."

I wasn't as graceful as Julie--I bumped into four different chairs as I raced through the restaurant after her, then nearly ran headlong into the sliding glass doors--which were, in my defense, extremely clean. I slid them open and shut them gently behind me, holding them closed in my hands as though my sister might escape.

Julie looked very lovely and very fragile, leaning delicately against the wooden railing. The deck was empty, closed off for fresh paint that had--I hoped, from the way Julie was leaning against it--now dried. The sun was only just starting to set and everything was golden, including the tears that had left trails down her cheeks.

I leaned in next to her, sideways, resting my arm on the railing next to hers.

"What's happened?" I said.

She didn't answer, but only sniffed and buried her face in her arms.

"Is it Charlie?"

After a moment, she nodded, her golden waves bobbing.

She didn't elaborate. If we were going to have to play twenty questions, that was how it would be played.

Still, it was all I could do to keep my anger from flaring. Right away, I know it was something to do with Percy. It had to be. What else would it have been? Had my dalliance with Wesson ruined her? Had he questioned her judgement because she was my blood-relation, and Percy thought her moral character questionable by association? I had no answers, and not yet any clue of what had happened, but I was already furious.

"What happened?" I asked, suppressing the anger to ask her probingly, but gently.

Julie turned her face to me, still resting her ear on her folded arms. When she spoke, her voice was choked and a little bit rusty, as if she'd been holding it in for too long.

"I got a phone call," she whispered, just loud enough so I could hear it over the breeze. "From Carolina."

My frown deepened. I'd heard the phone ring before we left for my graduation ceremony this morning. We hadn't been home since. Had she been holding this in all day?

"They're leaving," Julie said. She cast an upward glance at the falling sun. "They've left, I suppose."

"Well," I said, surprised but impatient, "are they coming back?"

"No. Their mom's renting out the house."

In spite of everything, I was still surprised. As much as I could have ruined Julie's reputation, I doubted even Percy could persuade Charlie to leave without saying goodbye to my sister--to send his sister in his stead to break her heart. Had I misjudged him so terribly? I couldn't conflate the Charlie who was so painfully and plainly in love with Julie with the Charlie who would discard her like expired ham.

" _Why_?"

Julie shrugged--the Julie version of utter despondency, of rending her clothes and sitting in the fireplace in sackcloth and ashes.

"I don't know."

"I thought he liked you."

Julie sobbed softly. "I thought so, too."

"There must have been some sort of misunderstanding."

Julie snorted--as much as Julie could snort. "You sound like Mom.” She sniffed. “She wants me to go stay at Aunt Bernice's in Seattle." Ah, yes, that was very on-brand. Mom, who didn't leave Belleport unless it was to go to the outlet mall, had little idea of the size of Seattle, nor did she seem to understand how closer proximity didn't guarantee a chance meeting between two people, no matter how much she wanted them to marry and have babies. I didn't blame her; as far as she knew, the entire world was exactly like Belleport, and you would run into at least fifteen people you knew while shopping for underwear.

"I'm not going," Julie sniffed. "I have to work. And Charlie knows how to use a phone. If he wants to speak to me, he'll call me. If he doesn't" --she shrugged, tears flooding her eyes as she choked out-- "he won't."

I threw my arm around her and pulled her close. She pressed her face to my shoulder. She didn't need to hide it; even snotty and wet, my sister was still impossibly pretty.

"I'm sorry," Julie said suddenly, pulling away. "I didn't want to ruin your party."

"You didn't," I said. "I just don't understand what happened."

"I must have misread things."

I grimaced. "Or Percy got to him."

"What?" She sniffed, sobering. "Why-why would Percy break us up?"

"I don't know," I lied. "Don't worry about me. It's not your fault. You haven't ruined anything."

"Becca?" another voice called out. It was Celia, standing in the open sliding glass door. For a moment I thought she was about to call me back, but the soft expression on her face said otherwise. She looked sympathetically at Julie, then back up at me. "I know it's not a good time," she said, "but can we talk?"

I was about to say no--maybe get a bit catty (with my best friend!) and tell her _absolutely not_ , because I was reaching that sort of mood and wanted to direct my anger somewhere. But Julie, bless her, spared me, and pushed me off, and said, "You might as well get it over with," before leaving me and Celia alone.

"Am I being pranked?" I asked, starting to wonder if there were cameras hidden about the decking, video cameras set to record to tapes marked _Americas Funniest Home Videos Entry, June 1997_. Perhaps later we'd watch these ridiculous moments back as a family and laugh at them: _Oh, Becca. You're so gullible. Wesson gone, Julie heartbroken, now Celia with some terrible news. Did you really think your life and everyone around you was falling to pieces at once? Surprise! It was all a terrible, terrible joke. But really, was the hysterical sobbing necessary?_

"It's not bad news," Celia said quickly. She stepped onto the deck. She was wearing a red kerchief-pattern dress of her own creation--it was too big for her, and the neckline wasn’t flattering, but it was modest, so it fit the bill. I thought her ordering from the salad menu. I wondered if her mom had put on her a diet again, because apparently God found it more difficult to dwell in the overweight.

"You don't look like you're about to tell me good news," I said cautiously.

She made no move to act casual--no sidling up to the rail beside me for a side-by-side conversation with a view. Celia was always direct, always face-to-face. Just like she was when she told me she kissed her first boy. When she was trying to let me down: forthright, honest.

She took a deep breath. "I'm going to Mexico."

"Wait," I said. I took a step back--thankful that the railing stopped me from going straight over the cliff. " _What_?"

"I'm going on the mission trip," she said. She folded her hands in front of her. They twisted together, playing with her thin gold rings. "Greg asked me to consider it. I said yes."

I gaped at her, most likely looking like something left by the side of the river to suffocate. I just couldn't believe it. Celia was always here. _Always_. Whenever I needed to complain about someone, she was there. My human library, my Who's Who of Belleport, my support, my best friend. With her laugh and her smile and her willingness to dance with me, always. And now she was leaving me.

 _"Why_?"

"Why?" she said. Her brows furrowed. She was angry. With me. Celia was _never_ angry with me, and yet one word--one situation--had already spoiled our friendship. Her next words sealed it: "Just because you don't want to make a difference doesn't mean I can't."

I clenched my jaw. If she wanted a fight, I would fight. I had so much fury bottled up I needed to take it out on someone.

" _What_ difference?"

" _Something!_ " Celia snapped. "More of a difference than I'll make at the ShakeShack." She softened, her own anger ebbing away. Inevitably, some of mine went with it. "And Becca... _health insurance_. My mom hasn't let me go ice skating since I graduated. No carnival rides, no nothing. At least this will be _something_. I’ll be out there, doing something other than serving stupid, spoiled high schoolers milkshakes...” She blushed. “No offense to Cynthia, obviously. But you understand, don't you?"

I closed my eyes, thinking, breathing. Opened them again. Celia's face was so earnest. Her body language was so unsure. Despite the initial anger--or perhaps even because of it--I _did_ understand. It wasn't just the health insurance. She wouldn't say it aloud--Celia would never say a word against her mother--but things had been difficult between them ever since her father left when she was nine. Her mother had enacted on her what could only be described as a form of twisted revenge against her father, and Celia had been unfortunate to look so much like him. She'd been made to take German in school instead of Spanish. She'd never gone with us to Mexican restaurants or MexiFest every May. I hadn't even thought of it before, but it was no wonder her mother had made her man the bake sale table at the information evening--she hadn't wanted her daughter to be tempted by the beauty and people of her father's homeland.

This was Celia's chance. Not just for health insurance, not just for a vacation, but to understand a part of herself. Where she came from.

My anger was seeping away. In its place, I felt a bit deflated. A little hollow. A bit...what was that, jealousy? Was _I_ jealous of Celia, doing the very thing I had fought so hard against?

Or was I jealous of her bravery?

"But _Greg_ ," I moaned.

She laughed, tearful. "I'll avoid him," she said. Finally, casually, she came to lean beside me, though we looked inward, toward the restaurant and my family who sat illuminated at the table, eating their rapidly melting ice cream and having fun without me. "Who knows, maybe we'll fall in love."

I swept a hot tear from the corner of my eye. "Don't you dare joke."

"Who's joking?" She leaned against me, and I leaned against her. Celia was, and always would be, a sister to me. Mexico or not. Greg or not. Jealousy or not.

"I'm happy for you," I said.

She shot me a sideways look. "No, you're not."

"I am a little," I said. This was too much. My throat was constricting. Too much was going on. "You know what you're doing, at least for the next year. And I--"

"--have nothing to worry about," she said. "You'll figure it out. You're Becca Bailey."

"That reputation is quite a lot to live up to," I said.

"I believe in you," she said. She dug her fingers into the pocket of her denim jacket and withdrew a small box wrapped in rainbow paper. She handed it to me.

"You shouldn't have gotten me anything," I said, knowing how little the ShakeShack paid her.

"It will turn your neck green," she said, "but it’s the thought that counts."

I pried open the little cardboard box. Inside was half a heart with a jagged edge and a "C" in looping script. It was nickel and tarnished and terribly tacky and I loved it.

"It symbolizes your cold and shrunken heart," Celia said. She pulled a chain from the puckered neckline of her dress. "Also, I have the other half."

I hugged her. "Thank you," I whispered in her ear.

"Becca?"

I pulled away from Celia. Julie had reappeared. She looked bashful. Like she had yet more bad news to deliver.

I closed my eyes for a brief respite, then reopened them. I put on a cheerful face.

"Do they want me back in?" I asked, thinking that my family looked to be getting on quite well without me, and even Maya was laughing at something--an action she wouldn't be able to repeat now that she'd used up her stock for the year.

"Well," Julie said, "maybe, but...someone is here for you. He's out front."

"He?"

 _Wesson_ , I thought. _He hasn't left_. _He's come back for me. Please._ _I'm due good news_. I left Celia and Julie and marched my way back through the restaurant and out the front door. I looked up the street, down it--and spotted him, standing between the uplit sign for the Cliffside and a navy blue Lexus.

Not Wesson.

"Good evening, Becca," Percy said. He was holding a pot of flowers, and dressed in a suit. "Can we talk?"


	10. A Refusal

My initial reaction to Percy showing up at my party with a potted plant was simultaneous disbelief and anger. I had no idea what he was doing here. I had no idea why he was wearing a suit. I was confused why he was still in town when he was meant to have scampered back to Seattle with Charlie tucked beneath his arm. Most of all, I was baffled why he had come to see _me_.

"This is for you," he said, proffering the plant. It was hard to see in the dim light, but I could make out nodding, pansy-ish heads of what looked like the perfect Purity white. I kept my hands at my sides. "It's one of Charlie's mom's strains," he continued. "They’re impatiens—Busy Lizzies, they're called in the UK. For some reason, they made me think of you."

None of this made any sense at all. Percy was here. Percy was here for me. Percy was here for me with _flowers_. I hadn't even said a word to him yet. I'd just stared at him like he was an alien arrival. I wondered how long it would be before one of my family members would come to find me and leap to the wrong conclusion. If it was Mom? All reservations would be pushed aside. He was rude, but he was _rich,_ and obviously, he had come to claim me.

Julie knew he was here. And yet she just passed his message on like a little lackey. She didn't speak one word against him--didn't even color in anger.

I found my voice. "Why are you here?" I asked.

"To congratulate you," he said. "Charlie told me your graduation dinner would be here. This is for you." He pushed the flowers toward me, insisting that I take them. "Congratulations."

I didn't want to take them. I wanted nothing from him. However, they were starting to tremble in his outstretched hand. I yanked them from his grip and hugged the clay pot against my chest, worried that he would drop it on the ground. An appropriate metaphor for the night, all told.

"We invited Charlie," I said.

"I know," Percy said.

"And now he's left."

"He has."

"Why haven't _you_ left?"

"I had unfinished business."

"With me."

He nodded concisely. I imagined what sound the pot would make when it hit him upside the head.

"Well?" I said. "What is it? What brought you all the way here when you'd much rather escape to civilization?"

He sucked in a deep breath. It may have been rather dark--he may have been lit from below like a carnival fortune teller, his thick eyebrows forming a strict line above his eyes--but he looked like he was enjoying this very little. It was as though he was in some amount of physical pain.

"I've come..." he began, slowly and carefully, like he was trying to not spook a horse, "...to ask you on a date."

The plant pot nearly dropped from my hand.

I waited a second for the moment to pass. His laughter, surely, would burst forth any moment. This _was_ all a practical joke. This was the feather in the cap, the tipping point, the final moment when poor Becca would finally break. He was here to finish me off.

Another long moment of his favorite awkward silence. He said nothing, somehow expecting me to dignify that with an answer.

"You're not serious," I said at last.

"Deathly," he replied.

"You hate me."

"I..." He gritted his teeth around the words. "…do not."

"You've always hated me. You think I'm ugly. You said I was a _Five_."

"I do not think you are ugly," he replied, as stiff as a starched collar on a Navy uniform.

"And if that wasn't enough to bruise my ego, you have looked down your nose at me every time we've talked. You think I'm a redneck, a little Podunk girl from a backwards church who--"

"Becca--"

"--wouldn't be able to find my backside with both hands. I know you think my family is ridiculous. Worst of all, I know you broke up Charlie and Julie."

Ah, there--that flinch across his face. _Bullseye._

"I assure you," he said levelly, "there was nothing to break up."

I stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief. "Have you ever _seen_ them together?"

"Yes, I've seen how my friend is with your sister. It was obvious he was wasting his time."

I clenched my fist in my skirts. I could feel veins standing out in my neck. I wanted to swear, very much, but I never swore, and I was not going to give Percy the satisfaction of finally tempting those bottled-in words out of me.

I shouted instead. "She was falling head over heels for him!"

He shouted back, his own anger piqued. "Every time he asked her somewhere she insisted on bringing her sister!"

"Of _course_ she did!" I cried. My face was flaming. My anger was mingling with hot embarrassment and shame and a few leaking tears. "She's never been _allowed_ to date. We've been told our entire _lives_ that if she's alone with a boy, the only thing that can be accomplished is _sin_. We are _working_ on changing that but it takes time, Percy. And you weren't willing to give it to her. So you've ended the relationship of what would have been a very happy couple." I breathed hard, in and out. In. Out. My chest deflated, wind out of my sails. My final words were through a throat clogged with helplessness and despair. "Well done."

Percy, finally, seemed to go silent out of the lack of further points to make rather than as punishment. When he did speak, his voice had gone just as calm, just as earnest and thoughtful and low.

"I was looking out for my friend."

"At the expense of my sister."

"Your sister couldn't make Charlie happy."

"He’s a very good liar, then."

"Does your mother make your father happy?"

I stared at him in disbelief, then spit through my teeth, "Don't you _dare_ bring my parents into this."

"Children learn from their parents' example, Becca," Percy responded. "It's an unfortunate truth that I have learned from much experience. And you have told me as much yourself, that you are ‘needed at home.’ Why, Becca? Why _are_ you needed? I’ll tell you: either they are a weight around your neck, or you are scared. Which is it?"

I stared at him, wild-eyed: half shocked, half-rage.

"Don't...you...dare." I spat it through clenched teeth. "You have the absolute _gall_ to insult me, and my sister, and my family, then ask me out on a _date_. Honestly, are you even _well_?"

He shifted from foot to foot in his expensive loafers and expensive, well-cut trousers and perfectly tailored jacket--tie the right length, collar done up, clean-shaven, every black hair in place. The only tells of emotions were the twitch in his square jaw, two points of color on his swarthy cheeks, the natural furrow of his brow. I wondered if he chased this emotion. I wondered if he made a habit out of these ridiculous shows just so he could practice what it was like to be human--what it was like to _feel_.

I wondered if this was how he felt when he got Wesson expelled.

Percy was nothing. He was simply a tourist in other people's highs and lows. The male version of Carolina Green. A gurgling brew of judgement and spite.

“You’re not answering the question, Becca,” he said quietly.

"I will never go out with you." I shoved the flowers back into his chest. He clasped his arms over them. His hand brushed mine, and I pulled my fingers away as though he'd stung me. "And I never want to see you again."

"Fine." He clutched the flowers closer. His long fingers slid over the rim of the pot, making the grating, nails-on-chalkboard sound of flesh on terracotta.

"And besides," I added, because it felt powerful, and because I wanted to tell someone, and I might as well drive the blade in as deep as it would go. "I'm seeing someone."

His jaw tightened. So did his hands. A crumpled leaf fell to the pavement.

"Ah," he said.

 _Wesson_. The name hung unspoken in the air, thick and fat and full of curiosity and loathing. Never mind that he had gone to Italy. Tonight? Wesson was mine to do with what I wished, and I wished to make Percy feel every bit of anger I did.

"Well," Percy said quietly. Finally, finally, he took a step back. Back toward the car, back toward Seattle, back toward his natural place far, far away from me. "That rather proves my point."

He turned away. Called over his shoulder.

"Goodbye, Becca." Lights flashed. He opened the driver's door. Slid inside, the flowerpot toppling into the passenger's seat footwell with uncharacteristic recklessness--I realized, with _anger_. He leaned in, grabbed the door handle, began to pull it shut between us. Smiled at me, the kind of smile you smiled at someone you hated with your entire being.

"I hope you two will be very happy together."

And with that, he drove away.

I went back inside in a daze. Julie was waiting just inside the front door.

"What did he want?" she asked me as we sidled through the restaurant back to our table.

"He asked me out on a date."

Even lovely, kind Julie couldn't hide her disbelief. Her pink eyes grew wide. "I thought he hated you?"

I thought of the flowers toppling to the floor. "He does.”

"Did he mention Charlie?"

I began to answer, then thought better of it. I shook my head.

"Where have you been?" Aunt Bernice called out as we slipped back into our chairs. "Your dessert has melted."

Indeed, my mudslide was now a puddle of brown goo and cookie crumbs in a large white bowl.

I cleared my throat. My stomach was in knots. I couldn’t bear the thought of picking up my spoon. "Just ran into some friends from school," I said. "Sorry."

Dad clinked his half-empty glass with a knife. "Well, now you're back, we can have our toast! Becca," he turned his blue eyes on me; his lips made odd, emotional shapes beneath his beard. For the first time in my life, I wanted him to stop talking. I couldn't take any more of this. I couldn't take any more of this feelings _soup_ inside of me, eating away at the walls of my heart, stomach, and lungs. I felt like I would be dissolved by it, until I was just a puddle of bubbling froth on the hardwood floor.

My dad, however, did not go quiet, and his voice and his eyes were full of warmth and affection. I felt a sudden swell of gratitude toward him. _How dare Percy. How dare Percy even think of him._

"Becca," Dad continued. "It has been a privilege to watch you grow up into the clever, funny, thoughtful--"

"--beautiful," Mom interjected, because Dad would never comment on his daughters' looks as a matter of principle.

"--caring young woman you are today," he said. "I have been so lucky to be your father. And I have been so proud. Whatever you choose to do next, you know I" --the weight to the _I_ was silent, but I knew it was there. Mom knew it was there. I knew what it would imply--that Mom wasn't part of whatever it was he was saying-- "will support you every step of the way. You will go on to do good things, Becca, whether you know it now or not." He lifted his glass. "To Becca Bailey."

Everyone lifted their glass, even Cynthia and Maya. They knocked their waters and sodas and wines against mine.

"To Becca Bailey," they echoed.

And I pressed a smile through to all of them, trying desperately and failing not to cry.


	11. The Letter

I had been told numerous times in my life that adulthood was a difficult endeavor. Jobs, bills, relationships, childcare, education, health--the impossible balance that Mom assured me would work out if I just applied my mind and found the right husband to take care of it all for me.

It was only five days after graduation, and I was lost.

Celia had left on Tuesday to tearful goodbyes and an official waving-off in the church parking lot. Julie tried to keep a brave face--for me--but I knew she was despondent. Any hours she spent not at work were spent mooning and crying softly while she folded laundry. Every tear cemented my resolve in my hatred of Percy and disappointment in Charlie. Every sigh made me grateful we'd never see them again.

I didn't tell her what Percy had said. I knew it wouldn't help. Besides, I'd driven past Ocean View--apparently the torture wasn't fresh enough. There was already a "FOR RENT" sign zip-tied to the locked iron gate.

Charlie Green--like Percy, like Carolina, like Wesson, like Celia--was gone.

Cynthia, at least, was a more pleasant distraction. Oblivious to the unhappiness of her sisters, she became fixated on shopping for her upcoming trip to Disneyland. She'd be leaving on Sunday to go to Seattle, then catching the plane from Sea-Tac first thing Tuesday. I wouldn't see her again for two weeks, and I was almost sorry for it.

"Aladdin is so hot," she said, folding her forbidden bikini under a full-length flowery sun dress. "Is that weird? I don't think it's weird. I mean, the guy in the Aladdin costume at Disneyland will be an actual real human, so I'm allowed to find him hot, right?"

I was in her room, sitting in her dressing table chair with a book on my lap, taking enjoyment in watching her try to fit four months of clothes into one small suitcase. Cynthia rarely failed to entertain.

"Hey, you know what he kind of looks like?" she said, wadding up a brand new bra.

I sneered--I knew what she was going to say before she said it, because it also immediately sprang to my mind with embarrassing speed, like the thought had already been lurking there, waiting for its moment.

"Percy," she said.

I snorted, flushing. "Oh, no, he doesn't."

"He _so_ does. Like, if Aladdin never smiled. And wore sad sweaters instead of that little vest. Percy's like, Sad Aladdin. Sadladdin."

It was difficult not to laugh, though I was up for the challenge. "Let's talk about something else."

"Is this because he's left?" she said. She collapsed onto the bed, out of breath and pink of face from the effort of packing. "Do you miiiss him?"

I turned to the first page of my book with no intention of reading the dedication. "No," I said.

"I think he liked you."

"He really didn't,” I said, unsure whether or not that was a lie.

"Sure, Becca." Cynthia rolled her eyes. "You two are too much alike, anyway, I guess. You would be soooo boring together."

"That's enough, Cynthia."

"He's still hot, though. And super rich. Mom would forgive you for all the things you've done that have made her mad. _And_ you would have really pretty babies."

That was probably the nicest thing she’d ever said to me.

"Please shut up, Cynthia."

"No," she said. "Hey, when are you going to his hotel, anyway?"

"It's not his hotel," I answered primly. I turned a page, staring at the letters rather than reading them. "It's his parents'. And I'm not sure. Maybe after you get back so we can spend longer apart."

I had absolutely no intention of using my gift certificate for the Emerald-on-Sea. My parents' kind gift had stirred several extremely mixed feelings as soon as I opened the envelope, and the immediate discovery in the aftermath that not only had Charlie asked Carolina to dump Julie for him, but that Percy himself had taken a keen and bizarre interest in me, had further colored my emotions. I'd shoved it in the bottom of my sock drawer, considered donating it to the church raffle, and hadn't looked at it since. I knew that now--with Cynthia in her usual high spirits, Mom alternating between roundly cursing the name of Charlie Green and making plans to set up Julie with "a nice nephew of a sister-in-law of Sally at church"--now wasn't the time. Even though as much I loved being the eye of the storm of my usual daily chaos, a few days on my own did sound incredibly tempting.

Besides, it wasn't like Percy would actually be there. His parents owned at least a dozen hotels. Was he really going to be at that specific one at that specific moment in time, and we would _just_ happen to run into each other in reception? And while it might have felt dishonest that my mother had taken advantage of both Charlie and Percy's good will to arrange this gift for me, it _had_ been paid for. It would be inconsiderate of me to discard a gift they (well, Dad) had obviously given some careful thought.

"Oh, shut up, you know you love me," Cynthia said. She sat back on her heels, out of breath. A blue sweatshirt sleeve uncoiled, hanging from the suitcase like a lolling tongue. "If I sit on my suitcase, can you buckle it?"

"You can take some clothes out."

"As if!" she snorted. "You never know who you'll meet in Disneyland, and I need to dress appropriately."

"It's ninety degrees there," I said.

Cynthia snatched another bikini from beneath her bed, the tags still attached.

"Exactly," she said.

I went down to the kitchen to grab a Dr. Pepper before Cynthia could get to it. Dad found me at the fridge.

"This came for you today," he said, handing me a thick cream envelope. Any other eighteen-year-old girl would be happy to see a packet like this come in the mail--something this fat would be a college acceptance letter, or maybe a passport just in time for that backpacking trip across Europe. However, I was pursuing neither of those things, and my name was handwritten across the front with blue ballpoint pen.

No return address.

"Thanks," I said.

I waited for Dad to return to his office, then slid my finger beneath the flap. I drew out the paper.

It was a letter, several pages long.

_Dear Becca,_

I stared at it, eyes flitting down the tidy rows of even, patient writing, trying to make sense of the words...who had written it, why. Wesson? It seemed unlikely. I'd only seen him a few days ago. It took a week for mail to get here from Vancouver; I doubted something would arrive from Italy that fast.

I looked up, around, and was sure that I wouldn't be left alone in the kitchen for long.

I tiptoed to the bathroom, the only room in the house that locked, and sat on the closed toilet lid.

I began to read.

_Dear Becca,_

_I'm aware that we did not part on the best of terms when we last saw each other. Do not worry--my objective is not to win your affection when you have already so plainly rejected me. I am writing to clear my conscience and my name so that we may separate as acquaintances, if not friends._

It was Percy. I knew it without even flipping to the signature line. No one else would write like this--except, perhaps, Wesson, who had told me on our date that their school had made them wear tailcoats to class and had forbidden the study of books written after Queen Victoria ascended the throne. But no, no one else would take the time nor have the patience to write four pages in tiny lettering, hand cramping, just to prove he was right. It was definitely Percy.

He opened with pretty words, but I had zero doubt that they were just that--words. The rest would be an expansion--not on the wrongs he had done _me--_ but on how I was wrong to turn him down. How I'd never make such a mistake again. How he was better off without me, but maybe he would be there if I decided to change my mind.

I considered crumpling the pages and stuffing them into the wastebasket, but I had to keep reading--for my own amusement and curiosity, if nothing else.

_I know I acted rudely on our first meeting. I acknowledge that you overheard my harsh judgement on your looks at your church that Sunday. Looking back, I am ashamed not only that you heard me, but that I thought such a thing, never mind said it aloud. I can only explain my behaviour with what you will most likely dismiss as excuses--I was uncomfortable, surrounded by several people I didn't know; I was defencive, as I knew their judgement of me would be harsh if they learned any more about me; and I withdrew. You received the barbed end of my words that day, and for that, I do apologise._

So little about this makes any sense. Percy admitting to being rude. Percy explaining himself and _apologizing_. And why did he think my church would judge him harshly? He was a good-looking young man with money. Of course, he wasn’t white, but that was obvious from looking at him--not something someone would have to discover in time. Sure, the painting of Jesus in the church basement was probably a little off-putting--on reflection, Jesus probably looked more like Percy than Brad Pitt. But was that enough to scare him so badly?

I read on.

_However, there are certain things for which I'm not sorry:_

_Firstly, I'm not sorry that I put the heart and head of my best friend first in my regard. I admit to not knowing your older sister as I may have liked, but you might understand my worries in knowing your mother's nature as--to put it delicately--someone who insists that her daughters should marry well. This, in combination with Julie's apparent lack of affection for Charlie, moved me to act to protect him. Where you saw a beloved sister too shy to act on her feelings, I saw a young woman cajoled into toying with a young man's heart in exchange for the ultimate goal of his inheritance. Your church's failings in encouraging healthy romantic relationships have not helped in this. For this, I do not blame you, or Julie. I only wish they had met in different circumstances and with the support of different outside forces. This was not the first time Charlie has found himself in love, and I'm afraid it won't be the last. I can only hope I have not done lasting damage to your sister--I am sure both will heal in time._

_Secondly, and most importantly, I'm not sorry for what has happened to Johnny Wesson, and I must address his accusations against me. I don't doubt that he has told you a very vague if affecting story of our time at school together. In order to explain fully, I will start at the beginning:_

_Johnny Wesson and I have known each other since we were children, as I'm sure he has happily explained. His mother was a loyal employee to my father, and suffered as a single mother after her husband left her for a younger woman. My own father attempted to fill this absence in Wesson's life, and grew fond of him through time; as a consequence, so did I, as did my younger sister, Grace, who looked up to him with the same admiration that she showed me._

_I was delighted when my father offered to pay for part of Wesson's place at my boarding school--not only would I have a friend when I arrived, but it would give us more time to grow closer. Wesson was everything I wanted to be--he was gregarious, bright, and charming, and when we arrived at school, he was a great help to me in my search for new acquaintances; as you are well aware, making friends does not come easily to me._

_In our sixth year, he began to find my own company engaging--a fact which I'm sure must confuse you--and we began, as was not terribly uncommon at my school, a kind of relationship that your church would not tolerate. I had very strong feelings for Wesson, and I was certain at the time that they were reciprocated._

_Strong feelings._ I stared at the page, gape-mouthed. The gears in my head ground into place. I smoothed over this paragraph and read it twice, wondering if I was misunderstanding Percy's meaning. No, I wasn’t. If he was telling the truth, Percy and Wesson had been in a relationship, which meant, judging by his subsequent pursuit of me, that Percy--and perhaps even Wesson--were...bisexual?

I flushed. No wonder Percy had been so uncomfortable at my church--he might have even spotted the 1 MAN + 1 WOMAN = GOD'S PURPOSE poster in the church lobby, right beneath the banner that shouted JESUS WELCOMES YOU. All the middle schoolers wearing What Would Jesus Do? bracelets while shoving past each other on the dance floor and thumping their chests and calling each other _gay_. Not that his noticing it would have been necessary. Everyone knew what my kind of church was like. Everyone knew what sort of people our Jesus tended not to welcome. Truthfully, I'd barely even considered it. I couldn't think of one person I knew who was "out," not even at school. It made it so easy not to think about it.

My face grew hot, and I suddenly felt shame and embarrassment and anger for having never even said or really thought anything about it.

I continued reading.

_Wesson was not comfortable revealing his background at school. He kept his scholarship and his sponsorship a secret, and told me that if anyone was to ask, I was to answer that he was descended from the Wessons of firearm fame. I was willing to do this, even though I have always prided myself on honesty--because my feelings were very strong, and I was determined to make him happy._

_In our seventh year, when we were seventeen, Grace began to attend the girls' school in a nearby village. I wasn't sure at the time if it was the close proximity, or the fact that there was yet another person who knew Wesson's true past arriving in his school life, but he grew distant from me. Our friends began to exclude me. I grew withdrawn. I knew school would be over soon, and I would return home. By Christmas, Wesson and I were no longer speaking._

_It was after Christmas, on my return to school, that I realised that Wesson--who had taken an earlier flight--wasn't there. I then received word from the head teacher that my sister, too, had not returned to school, and they questioned if I knew where she might be. I didn't--I had seen her only that morning, on the train from the airport before I put her in a taxi. She had not been her usual self; she was moody and tired, and complained that she didn't want to go back to school. I consoled her, and dismissed her mood. After all, she was only fifteen._

_It was the next day that I received a phone call from my sister from Bristol. She and Wesson had run off together, and not only that, but Grace was pregnant._

_You must understand--your family and your church are not alone in their strict moral codes, and our society regardless of religion does not look kindly on young mothers. My parents, though both generous and loving, are also of Catholic and Coptic stock, and would find Grace's missteps shameful. As a result, I acted in secret, going to my sister and being with her, at her request, as she terminated the pregnancy. Wesson was expelled by the school for absconding and improper conduct (though they knew nothing of the pregnancy, and never would). He returned to America without qualifications but with a small allowance provided by me--in trade for his never telling my parents the truth of our relationship nor the depths of what had transpired with my sister. I withdrew the stipend when he joined the military, knowing that his revealing our past relationship to the Navy would result in his termination. I was relieved to have cut our ties, so you can imagine that I was not happy to find that I had the misfortune of occupying the same circles as him once more. I was especially disappointed to find that he had already taken an interest in you. Not because I feel entitled to your affections, but because I can say with certainty that he is not worthy of them._

_Becca, I acknowledge that this is information that you feel you could have done without, and this in no way obliges you to believe me. I am under no illusion that your feelings for me will ever change. You may think that this letter is selfish, and you may well be right--I admit that it's therapeutic to write down the wrongs that Wesson has committed against me and my family, especially as I find so much difficulty in expressing it out loud._

_But this is not only for me--I am writing this for your sake. I hope you will do with this information what you must, and give it the consideration that it's due._

_I don't expect you to write back. But, if you need me for any reason, my address in Seattle is below. I won’t wait for your answer, but I would be pleased to receive it and to know that I do not work under false hope that what transpired between us--whatever it was--was fruitless._

_Yours faithfully,_

_William Percy_

#

"Are you okay, Becca?" Julie asked that night as we prepared pot roast for dinner. I was chopping the carrots; she was seasoning the beef. The kitchen melted with the scent of frying onions.

"Hm?" I looked up, narrowly avoiding cutting off the tip of my finger. "Oh," I said. "I'm fine."

"You seem preoccupied," she said.

"I'm fine," I chirped again, and when I was sure we had nothing left to do but slide everything into the Dutch oven, I left Julie and slipped back upstairs without a word.

I took out my Baptism Bible--the one place I was sure Cynthia would never think to look for anything--and opened it to the atlases, where Percy's letter sat neatly folded between the pages. I had read it through three times already, and in bits and pieces a countless number.

I had already decided one thing:

I was not going to write back.

Something else I couldn't decide: was Percy telling the truth?

I certainly didn't want to believe it, but why would he lie? It seemed an elaborate story to invent just to break me with up Wesson--as if there was anything _to_ break up. And the details--their relationship, what happened to his sister--those were private, sensitive things, and Percy was the last person I imagined that would throw those events at a piece of paper on a whim.

There was a soft knock on my door. Julie poked her head through.

"You sure you're okay?" she said. "The roast is in the oven. Do you want to talk?"

I folded the letter back in the Bible, not wanting her to see. In a minute, I would decide whether or not to divulge its contents to her, but from the moment I read the first few paragraphs I knew I couldn't share its entirety with my sister. Charlie was gone, on Percy's persuasion, and the letter would not bring him back. And if Charlie could be so easily persuaded, perhaps I was wrong, and _they_ were wrong together. Percy had insisted that Charlie had fallen in and out of love easily before, and if his mind was so easily changed, I knew that he could not provide my sister with the stability she desired.

So I said nothing of Charlie. I did, however, let her read the last three pages (without swearing her to secrecy, because, unlike Cynthia, Julie did not spill secrets), telling her nothing more than that the first page recounted a private conversation from the night he left that I'd rather keep between me and him. Julie, of course, understood, and I watched as she read, a slight crease forming between her brows.

When she finished, she set the pages aside, thinking, silent.

"Sorry," she said after a moment. "Maybe I'm reading this wrong...but is Percy saying that he's gay?"

"Bisexual, I think," I said, blushing a little, though I wasn’t sure why. I’d thought and said that word more in the past few hours than I’d heard it in my entire life. "But yeah, I was surprised, too."

"I just...can't imagine Johnny doing something like this."

"I really can't either," I said. "I don't know who to believe. I didn't even know Percy had a sister," I said.

"Charlie mentioned her a few times," Julie said wistfully. "Apparently she's a real sweetheart."

I grimaced. "Poor girl."

"So you believe him, then?"

"I don't know," I said. Jaw clenched, I took the pages and flipped through them again, as if they would whisper a truth to me that Percy couldn't. "I really don't think he would lie about this, do you?"

"No," Julie said. After a pause, during which I folded the letter back in my Bible, she said, "What now?"

"At least he's away from Cynthia now." I scoffed, thinking back uncomfortably to their meeting at the mall. She'd been so happy to see him, but he'd been so upright in rejecting her obvious advances. The side-hug, the brushing off of her hands…it was all very nervous-male-youth-group-leader-with-an-under-18-girl. It was difficult to imagine his pursuing a girl not much younger than Cynthia, even if he was a year or two younger himself. "He's away from _everyone_. He's gone to Italy. I guess I won't be heartbroken if I never see him again."

"I wouldn't think so," Julie replied, politely ignoring the wistful sadness of my voice.

"I promised I would write to him," I said, touching my fingers to my lips. I flushed. "Right before he kissed me."

"He _kissed_ you?" squeaked Julie. "Becca, you didn't tell me!"

"No," I said. "Sorry."

"I guess that proves Mom's point," Julie said. "Intimacy should be reserved for a committed relationship." She spotted my pursed lips and rushed to correct herself. "Oh, I'm sorry, Becca. That's not very helpful."

I brushed off her apology.

"If only part of Percy's story is true," I said, "and it may be--maybe I owe Wesson an explanation. I should write to him and tell him that he shouldn't expect any more from me. We parted on...very good terms, and I wouldn't want him to think badly of me in case Percy's not telling the entire truth. I can call it off with no bad feelings."

"And if Percy _is_ telling the entire truth?"

"Then I'll never speak to Wesson again, anyway," I said. "In either case, isn't it best just to call it off?"

I wasn’t sure. I frowned at my sister, hoping she would decide for me.

She didn’t. She chewed her lip and folded her hands in her lap.

"I don’t know,” she said. “Do you even have his address?"

"Um..." I patted my pockets, as though I'd find it there. "No. He forgot that detail. I'll call the base and ask."

"Oh, Becca," Julie sighed. "What if Percy’s wrong? What if he’s spoiling everything?"

I thought of Percy's words, his accusations, the deep vein of hurt--real or imagined, that ran through every sentence. The hurt that Wesson had supposedly caused.

I felt it, in some small way. An uneasy pit in the bottom of my stomach.

“I have to trust one of them,” I said. I made a pained face. “And in this instance, I think I choose Percy.”

#

I borrowed the cordless phone from my parents' bedroom (holding my breath, closing my eyes--this was forbidden ground) and went back to my room, which Julie had left in order to give me privacy.

I opened the Yellow Pages on my bed and, after some rummaging, found a contact number for the base. A pleasant woman answered, and after explaining what I was after, she forwarded me to someone who she said could help.

"'Lo?" a gruff voice answered when the call was picked up. Not Wesson, though of course I hadn't expected it to be. He was, after all, in Italy.

"Um, hi," I said. I suddenly wondered if this was how Percy felt when he talked to every stranger--he never knew what the reaction would be of the person on the other end of the conversation. "I'm looking for a forwarding address for Johnny Wesson? I was forwarded to this--"

"Yeah, hold on," the man said. There was a slide of a hand over the receiver, but it did nothing to muffle the man's bellowing:

"Wess!" he shouted. "It's another one for you!"

_Wess._

_It's another one for you._

I hung up.

I pressed the phone into my lap, heart pounding. It was a mistake, wasn't it? Wesson was in Italy. Not here.

 _Wess_.

Not a common name though, was it, Wesson? And I'd asked for him by his full name. _And_ the receptionist had sounded puzzled when I asked for a forwarding address in Italy.

No, there was no denying it.

Wesson was not in Italy.

And, gauging by the second sentence from the charming gentleman on the phone, I was not his first or second or third or fourth date that he'd taken to Deception Point.

 _It's another one for you_.

I almost threw the phone across the room. Instead, I pressed my lips together, went to my bureau, and slipped the green envelope from my sock drawer.

Then I dialed the number on the card.

"Hello, Emerald-on-Sea?" I said. "I'd like to book a room."


	12. The Emerald-on-Sea

I did not want to run into Percy.

So far, this vacation was not relaxing. I was on edge from the moment Julie kindly dropped me off at the ferry terminal the following Friday. I loved boats; I loved ferries. They were the epitome of the people-watching experience: boarding on foot and watching the cars lining up in their tidy rows, the dogs hanging heads out of back windows, tongues lolling. Vans stuffed so full of camping equipment that tent poles were threatening to burst through the windshield if they came to a sudden stop. Children running up and down and up and down the narrow metal stairs, pressing their faces to the window in the hope of seeing whales. The sunburned elderly in their sunglasses taking to the front deck, grey perms flying everywhere in the wind.

But today I couldn't relax and enjoy. I was going on vacation by myself for the first (and, honestly, probably the last) time ever, and with that came a certain amount of oddness and nerves, especially surrounded by families and friends and church groups and happily cuddling couples on the passenger deck.

And I couldn't stop thinking about Percy.

There was no reason to see him, of course. He had no reason to be travelling on the ferry with me toward Seattle when he'd already left, nor did he have a reason to be waiting for me on the other side. And I doubted that he'd be taking the boats us plebs had to take to the Emerald Docks; he probably had a private helicopter. Or a yacht.

And _why could I not stop thinking about him_?

Some of it must have been a sense of self-preservation. I had told him outright that I had no intention of seeing him ever again, and he had agreed. So obviously it would have been embarrassing to run into him, and I was not a person who reveled in embarrassment.

And if I _did_ run into him...what on earth would I say?

_No, Becca._ I shook myself. It didn't matter. I wouldn't see him, and if I did, we would exchange polite, distant words and move on our separate ways. There was no need to bring up Charlie or Julie or Wesson or that I'd read his letter at least a dozen times. There was no cause to mention that I had sent Pastor Frances a letter asking him to take down the 1 MAN + 1 WOMAN = GOD'S PURPOSE poster in the church lobby (or that I hadn't received a reply). There was no reason to pretend that Percy's brief presence in my life had had any lasting effect, whether I was currently on my way to his family's hotel or not.

I disembarked the ferry on the mainland, and caught a taxi to the private docks where the _Sparkling Jewel_ ran daily charter services to the Emerald-on-Sea. The driver was a youngish man, and so talkative that Percy probably would have paid him extra to keep quiet.

"Have your own boat, do you?" he teased me, smiling in his rear view mirror. With my flyaway hair, wind-chapped face, and raggedy travel-sweater, I probably looked like the last person who would own her own boat.

"No," I said, not sure what else to say. I hoped he wasn't flirting with me. I'd had enough of men taking an interest. "I'm going to the Emerald-on-Sea."

"Oh," the driver said, "going for a wedding or something?"

"No," I said. "I'm going on vacation."

His bushy red eyebrows registered surprise.

"By yourself?" he said.

"I have a lot of reading I want to do."

He nodded his head, his bald spot bobbing above the lip of his headrest.

"Respect," he said. "I don't think I'd have the balls. There's something kind of sad about going places on your own, isn't there."

For a moment I considered asking him to pull over and let me out of the car, but we'd only just passed a sign that said PORT - 2 MILES. And I'd struggle to carry my suitcase (ninety percent books) twenty feet.

"I don't think so," I said. "I think company is overrated."

Finally, that shut him up.

He left me at the docks--I gave him a large tip in case he mistook stinginess for picking a fight out of romantic interest--and immediately found the _Sparkling Jewel._ Its uniformed staff member--a pretty girl in her twenties--smiled widely at me as I boarded, and had the good sense that the driver had lacked in not asking me any questions on why I, an eighteen-year-old girl, was traveling by myself. She did, however, withdraw my complimentary glass of champagne and hand over a Sprite, instead.

Finally, my vacation seemed to have started.

We chugged along the waters of the Sound that sparkled in the midday sun. Islands littered the sea, so dense with trees that from a distance, they'd look like lumps of moss scattered across the surface of the water. The Olympic Mountains were just jagged blue shadows looming on the horizon. The wind was salty and fresh, and I leaned against the railing alongside a newly married couple--I could tell from the way both played with their unfamiliar rings--and wished, just a little, that Julie or Celia were here.

At last, after five hours, two cars, two boats, and far too many people looking at me and plainly wondering what was wrong with me, the engine cut off and we slipped into the mooring--already crowded with motorboats and sailboats--at the Emerald-on-Sea.

From the water, the only hint of the hotel one could see was a brief glint of sunlight off glass through the tree branches. All I could hear was the slap of water on the hull of the boat, the other guests chatting, the birdsong, the wind through the leaves of the trees.

The girl in uniform helped me from the boat; from the luggage hold, I heard a bellhop grunt--he'd undoubtedly come across my suitcase.

The girl smiled widely.

"Welcome to the Emerald-on-Sea," she said. "I hope you enjoy your stay."

I tried to not let my mouth gape on the way up to the hotel. It was impossible. Every bit of the island I could see seemed particularly groomed in a way that was nearly natural, from the way trees with differently colored leaves--from crimson reds to vibrant yellows to emerald greens--butted against each other, vying for attention. Tropical-looking plants burst from the side of the stairs in a purple and pink haze from among delicate, silvery ferns. The air _literally smelled of cookies_. My stomach grumbled, constricting around the empty air where my granola bar had been.

At the top of the stone steps, a grand lawn cut in neat, alternating stripes led to the most beautiful hotel I had ever seen. Anywhere else in the world, I imagined it would have looked out of place; here, it was almost as though it had grown out of the earth, with a facade of grey stone and pale wood and huge plates of glass that reflected the blue of the sky and the green of the trees and grass. Plants tendriled up trellises, dripping with heavy violet flowers. White smoke drifted lazily from a huge stone chimney.

I'd seen pictures--they hadn't done it justice.

_Just think,_ my Mom's voice whispered inside my head, _if you said yes to him, someday this may have all been yours_.

"Are you okay, miss?" a bellhop asked me, red-faced and panting from carrying my suitcase. It was only then that I realized I was laughing.

I sighed. "Fine," I said.

There was a waterfall in the lobby. Of course. Koi gleamed beneath the surface of a stream, and more ferns unfurled from the edges of rock pools. The front desk erupted from the floor like it had appeared in the aftermath of an earthquake. One misstep architecturally and I would have thought I'd wandered into The Nature Company at the mall, but no--the Emerald-on-Sea just managed the appropriate amount of restraint to make it feel natural and modern rather than contrived. It was, in every conceivable way, perfect.

"Miss Rebecca Bailey, here we are," the woman at the desk said. She finished checking me in with a flourish of the computer keyboard, then turned to me with a beaming smile. She pushed an iron key attached to a piece of petrified wood across the counter. "We are so happy to have you here, Miss Bailey. We've been informed that you'd be staying. The Percys have personally seen to it that you would be under my care during your visit."

I flinched. "Sorry?"

The woman's smile grew wider. She was middle aged and handsome, with sleek, dark hair and a wide, natural-looking smile. I hoped she wasn't Wesson's mother.

"You'll be in the Waterfront Suite," the woman carried on, ignoring my surprise. "Dinner is served in the restaurant from seven P.M., and breakfast from eight A.M. Lunch options are available from your room service menu at no extra charge."

"I think there's been a mistake," I said, pushing the key back toward her. "I booked a standard room."

The woman's expression didn’t falter. She looked _genuinely pleased_ , like my presence was a benefit to her. Was she being paid extra from the moment I arrived? What was happening? Had Percy changed his mind--and was now trying to buy off my affection? The idea of it felt sour in my mouth.

"Oh, don't worry," the woman--Debbie, her name tag said--replied, pushing the key back to me, "we needed your booked room for a wedding party. The upgrade is at no extra charge."

I wasn't sure I believed her, but Debbie didn't seem like someone who would be pleasant to argue with--any ammunition I had would be volleyed back with an even brighter smile. I hoped the Percys were paying her well.

"I don't suppose the Percys are going to be here?" I asked, trying to give nothing away and feeling guilty for it. What would Debbie think if she knew that the last time I'd seen Percy I had told him that I never wanted to see him again? Would she put me right back in the supposedly-booked-up standard room--or maybe a broom cupboard--or would the mask slip and she'd congratulate me for giving Percy what he deserved?

"Oh," Debbie said, smile fading, "I'm afraid not--I think they're in New York at the moment. Did you want me to get a hold of them for you?"

"No, no," I said hurriedly. "That won't be necessary."

"Great," Debbie said. "I'll show you to your room."

The Waterfront Suite was not a room. It was an apartment.

"The mattress pad is made from ethically-sourced recycled goose down, and the pillows, I'm sure you'll find..."

I stopped listening. Debbie had lost me at the windows--she could have been setting fire to the four-poster bed and dead-bolting the door and I wouldn't have noticed.

This _view_. There really was nothing like it on Earth. The watercolor blending of blues and greens and the sparkle of the sun on the waves and the triangular sails of the exploring schooners. The room faced west, where wispy clouds were settling. I'd be able to see the most spectacular sunsets perfectly from a huge wingback chair, positioned precisely by a matching ottoman as though someone knew I'd come here solely to read.

My eyes blurred. I was starting to cry. _Ridiculous._

Suddenly, painfully, I began to miss my family. I'd never been homesick before. Not at lock-ins, not on camping trips, not on vacations to the Oregon Coast. But here I was, a hundred blissful miles away in peace and quiet with the Puget Sound at my feet in all its splendor, and I found myself keenly missing my dad's humming, and my mother's habit of taking instant offence at everything I said and did, and Julie's kind prodding, and Cynthia's barely-suppressed promiscuity and annoying thievery. I was suddenly--intensely--lonely.

"I'll let you settle in," Debbie said, turning to go.

"No!" I said, a little too quickly. "I mean...do you have time to give me a tour?"

She smiled kindly. "Of course, Miss Bailey."

"Please, call me Becca."

I followed Debbie through the hallways, up and down the stairs, out to the grounds where she showed me the best private places for boat-watching and reading, and back into the pool room, where a blue-tiled swimming pool sat beneath panes of glass set in a sky-blue frame. It was beginning to rain, but softly, and it pattered on the glass above our heads.

Debbie opened the door to the sauna and began to demonstrate spooning water onto the rocks. I immediately started sweating through my shirt.

"Do you enjoy working here?" I blurted out.

My voice sounded close--almost claustrophobic--in the sweltering cedar room. She looked back at me, wide-eyed with surprise, and for a moment I thought I had caught her off-guard with my abruptness, but she let nothing slip past a moment of registered surprise before she rearranged her face into its usual friendliness.

"I've worked here for twenty years," she said, voice awed, like I'd asked her if she'd ever visited the moon. "I've never looked for a job anywhere else."

"Never?" I asked. We erupted, both sweating, from the sauna. "You've never thought that maybe hotel work wasn't for you? That you wanted to do something else with your life?"

I was being rude and I knew it. But I couldn't help it. I couldn't imagine working at LatToGo for twenty years. Exchanging watery coffee for cash did little in terms of life fulfilment. Just talking to Debbie was beginning to give me an existential crisis--the fact that I had nowhere to go after this three-day vacation was starting to knock insistently, demanding my attention.

But still, I knew there was no shame in having a job. No shame in supporting your family. Wasn't that the reason I was dragging my feet? For my family, no matter how much it weighed me down.

I reddened, wishing I could take back my words, but Debbie let on no hint that I'd offended her.

"It's normal to get restless," she said cheerfully, carrying on to the next door that announced HOT TUB. "I get plenty of time off. I had to take a month off when my son was in an accident--full pay. The Percys even sent flowers to the hospital. And last year they started letting us take two weeks off to volunteer."

"Are you serious?"

I thought briefly of Percy and my trip to the grocery store, and his sincere enquiries after the checkout girl's vacation pay. Perhaps she was.

"Of course," she said. "Last year I helped build houses. I think I'm going to volunteer at the Humane Society this time."

"And that's company policy?"

"They're trialing it here, I think," Debbie said, closing the door to the Hot Tub room. "Their son William came up with it when he was working here after high school. Would you like me to show you the restaurant?"

"Oh, no, thank you," I said. My head was starting to ache. "I think I'd like a nap, now."

In my room, alone, I drew the curtains at the window and the drapes around the four-poster bed. I lay there in ringing silence, staring at the cloth canopy and the pale dots of light in the crimson weave of the fabric.

"William Percy," I said aloud.

That was what she had called him. _Their son William. William_. Not _Mr. Percy the Younger_ , not just _Percy_. He was on first-name basis with his employees. He was giving them _time off to volunteer_.

Had I really misjudged him so badly? I mean... _had I_? He admitted himself that he was rude when we first met, but looking back, was I just another face in the crowd to him? Another girl in white, out to snag a husband on her Purity Day? Another girl who would judge him if she knew the truth?

I folded my hands over my chest. I pressed my palms against my beating heart.

Maybe Percy was not the man I thought he was.

And maybe I was not the girl I thought I was, either.


	13. Grace Percy

At some point--and somehow, despite the churning thoughts in my head of Lexuses and car phones and strange, assessing eyes--I fell asleep.

I woke up starving.

I perused the room service menu with a vague feeling of guilt at making someone bring food to me, and then decided that as I fully intended on spending the next two days completely alone, there would be no harm in going down to dinner. I could take a book. I'd be the weird eighteen-year-old girl sitting in a gourmet hotel restaurant eating dinner by herself and reading, but there were worse things to be, and it wasn't like I'd see any of these people again in my entire life.

So I went down. As soon as I stepped through the doors, I heard a high, soft voice call out my name:

"Becca? That is you, isn't it?" It was a slight girl a year or two younger than me, with long black hair, expressive eyes and an outfit like she'd just stepped off the set of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ (or the commercials for it, at least; we weren't allowed to watch it): red leather trousers, a tank top, a silver choker. Two narrow strands of bangs hung down either side of her face.

She was lovely.

Just like her brother.

"Grace Percy?" I said, because of course I remembered her name. One didn't read Percy's letter that many times and forget it, not when it was so indelibly linked to Wesson in my head. Now, I was trying, with some success, to unlink the two in my brain, because this, undoubtedly, was William Percy's sister, and I knew far more about her than I should have.

Her smile was exactly like Percy's (the few brief times that I'd seen it).

"Oh God," she said. "Please don't tell me we look that much alike."

"It's a compliment," I said, reaching out to shake her hand and screaming inside. _Why is she here, why is she here, why is she here? Debbie said she wouldn't be here. Why did she lie? Why was Grace waiting for me?!_

Instead of taking my hand, she reached out and pulled me into a gentle hug.

"Billy's told me so much about you," she said, pulling away and looking at me fondly--oddly, like I was someone she had to be proud of.

I made an incredulous face, trying not to blurt, " _Billy?"_ at high volume. "Has he?" I said with some surprise.

"I've saved you a spot," she said. "I almost thought you wouldn't show up. But Debbie said you hadn't come down and I was _sure_ you must be hungry. Do you like crab? The crab here is really good. _Everything_ is really good. Here, have some bread."

I'd barely sat myself in the chair across from her before she slid a crusty bread roll onto my empty side plate.

"Sorry," she said in a particularly Canadian way. I slipped off my coat and a waiter swooped in to take it from me. "I'm talking too much. And you brought a book." Her eyes flickered to the copy of _Sula_ beneath my palm. There was no judgement in her voice, only plain statement of fact. "If you want to read, I can leave--"

"No, no," I said, wondering why on earth I was objecting. This was _Grace Percy_ , sitting _across from me_. At _dinner_. Completely _unannounced_. "I'd like the company."

"I think you're really brave," Grace said, and her brother’s earlier accusations outside the Cliffhouse suddenly resurfaced in my head, stinging. "I spend weeks here every year and I always still feel weird spending time by myself. Sometimes I pay Debbie to come up and play Nintendo 64 with me. Sorry, that sounds sad. Do you like video games?"

"I've never really played them."

She stared at me, painted purple mouth hanging open. In that moment, she looked extremely young.

" _Never?"_ she gasped.

"We're not really allowed to." The reasons and logic behind this particular household rule, I'd never understand. Mom had heard on talk radio once that video games--including Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong--somehow sexualized children prematurely. She had never, however, bothered to go through my bookcase. The dust irritated her asthma.

"That's sad," Grace said. "And a bit weird. Sorry. I hope you don't mind me saying."

"No," I said, surprised that I didn't mind it. Maybe it was her constant apologizing, but I found Grace difficult to be annoyed with--one stark difference she had with her brother. "Debbie said you wouldn't be here."

"I heard you were coming," she said, smiling through a mouthful of fettuccine. "I headed over right away."

"That's very nice of you," I said. I was acting bland. I knew it. Why didn't she look bored? _I_ felt bored. This was the point where Cynthia would have poked me in the neck and told me to stop being such a straight-edge, and Mom would have whispered in my ear to sit up straight and smile. "Um...exactly how much has your brother told you about me?"

"Loads," she said. "We talked on the phone all the time when he was in Belleport." I couldn't imagine Percy saying more than two words on the phone. "It's like talking to a rock," she said. "We get along better in person, or by letter--we've always talked a lot by letters, especially when we were at school. But shut up, Grace. You want to know what he's said about you?"

Oh, I could clearly imagine every word. _Becca Bailey--solid Five. Pretty, gold-digging sister gunning for Charlie. Shrill mother, slutty little sister, no future beyond high school. Dating the man who impregnated you when you were fifteen. Extremely frigid and religious. I like her a lot, but I think it's a like-hate relationship, and she hates my guts so therefore I must have her, if only briefly before disposing of her._

"Are you okay?" Grace asked when I didn't answer, generous mouth turning down at the corners. With my thoughts shaken, Wesson and the pregnancy kept floating to the surface of my mind. It was far too difficult to push out. With so many years and hours of my life dedicated to hearing about the “sin of abortion,” it was a reflex to let that one word dominate my thoughts, and then yet again to congratulate myself for being willing to see past it.

I knew that I was being judgmental. Regardless of whether it was a sin or not, she had been fifteen. If it was anyone’s sin, it was Wesson’s. He’d tried to ruin--and nearly succeeded in ruining--her life. Why had he done it? Was it an accident? Or had it been a ploy--an attempt to pilfer her money? He'd been so generous with me, but maybe he still had some of Percy's allowance in the bank.

I smiled back. "Fine," I said. "I don't think I want you to tell me."

"What?" she said, still smiling, maybe a little indulgently. "You don't want me to tell you that my brother thinks you're pretty and smart and funny and the most interesting girl he's ever met?"

I dug my knife into the bread roll so hard it glanced off the blade and flew to the floor. The waiter swooped in and handed me a new one.

"I know you're joking," I said, feeling sheepish and unworthy of her attention...and very curious of what else she’d have to say about her brother.

"I'm so not," Grace replied. "And he thinks you have _very soulful eyes_. He was right, by the way. He does say you drive him crazy...no, no, he says _drives him mad_ because his ridiculous school taught him to talk like that. No, don't make that face--that's what he says about every person he cares about. I think it's good. I think _you're_ good."

"But we've only just met," I said.

"I have good taste in people.” She twisted her fork in the air before once more attacking her pasta. Her vibrant smile faltered again. "Well, I do now."

I wondered if she knew about the letter. I wondered what she'd think if she knew Percy had told me.

"I know he'll hate me if I say it--" she continued in a whisper. Percy would never hate her, I knew that much. The way he'd written about her, I was sure no one else meant more to him in the world. It was one of the things that kept me going back to read it. It peeled back one of Percy's layers--it almost made me like him. "But," Grace continued, "I think he has a bit of a crush on you."

"Ah." I colored. "He's, um, said as much."

"But you two aren't..." She bobbed her head, urging me on.

"Um, no," I said, blushing harder. They could send me into the kitchens and fry fish on my face. "It just wasn't the right...timing."

 _Timing?_ What on earth was I talking about? It was nothing about timing and entirely how he'd broken my sister's heart, called me a coward, and told me--deservedly or not--that my family was nuts before _asking me out_. However, it didn't seem appropriate to bring it up at dinner with his beloved sister.

Her smile returned, a little smug. "I'm sure you guys will get there."

I smiled, close-lipped. "I don't know."

"Well," she said. "At least you'll have another chance."

The waiter almost had to hand me another bread roll. But instead of succumbing to shock, I composed myself, set down my knife, and mimicked her good Canadian manners. "Pardon?"

"Oh, nothing!" she said. "Never mind. I don't think I heard you properly. More bread? It's really good. Do you want some butter?"

Once we left the topic of William Percy, Grace was good company. She was friendly, curious, and polite--and, when she told me that she sung, had absolutely no qualms about breaking into a show tune in the middle of the restaurant. But when she had a secret to keep, she was also extremely good at changing the subject. I tried to work around twice more to what she meant when she said, 'At least you'll have another chance," but she didn't relinquish one bit of the conversation. Any time I tried, she'd start talking about the local Orca pod or France or the Broadway production of _Rent_ , which sounded like yet another thing Mom would never let me see. Not once did she let conversation stray back to her brother, but I?

I couldn't stop thinking about him.

Was he here?

Was he coming back to Belleport?

Why on earth was some small part of me hoping he was?

We stayed at the table for a full two hours. By the time I went to leave, I wouldn't need to eat for a week, and Grace still hadn't run out of things to say. I quickly realized that for all the words that Percy had lost, Grace had found them. She didn't suffer for it; I enjoyed her company, even if it did leave me with questions she refused to answer. It didn't hurt that she seemed to like me immensely--there is only so much that one can begrudge when faced with such unending praise and attention.

"I know you've come to rest," Grace said as she accompanied me to my room that night, "and I fully intend to leave you alone, but if you need anything, just give Debbie a call and she'll let me know right away, okay?"

"Thank you," I said sincerely, and this time, I was the one to hug her. It was like hugging a bundle of affectionate coat hangers.

Grace pulled away and patted me on the cheek like she was my aunt and not a year my junior. She was wealthy, privileged--and, like her brother, there was something delicate in her. Something raw beneath her skin that would bruise to the touch.

"See you soon, Becca," she said. "I hope you change your mind."

I stepped away from her in surprise. "About what?"

"'Night!" she called, and she slipped down the hallway and into the open elevator, and disappeared from sight.


	14. Percy

I never had to leave my room again if I didn't want to. I had a pile of books neatly stacked on the coffee table next to my reading chair. The Puget Sound unfurled before me like endless lengths of glimmering blue organza. The coffeemaker made coffee when I wanted it; room service called _me_ that morning to see if I wanted breakfast delivered (I caved--they had waffles. Not as good as the Cliffhouse, but then, nothing was); I was freshly showered and well-rested despite the gigantic meal and puzzling company of the night before.

But every time I looked inside a book, the letters jumbled into a mess on the page--elongating, scribbling. I had the urge to bring out Percy's letter again, but I had left it at home. It didn't matter. I'd nearly had it memorized.

I lasted until eleven A.M. I had just watched a large group file down to the docks for a whale watching tour. The gardens would be quiet; the pool might be empty.

I couldn't focus. I needed some air and some exercise. I needed to clear my head.

I changed into my swimsuit. In the bathroom, I held my sleep shirt up in front of my body in the mirror, pressing it against my chest. The puffy kittens smiled benignly back at me.

I left it in a heap on the floor.

I cannot describe the simultaneous freedom and terror that came from stepping into a public room half-naked after eighteen years of being told my body was wrong. Even though the pool was empty--with the exception of an elderly couple who shuffled out in hotel slippers as I entered--the sunlight was on my skin, glittering and white. My thighs were visible to anyone who would walk in. My shoulder blades were showing. They looked nice in this light. Delicate and well-formed. The polish on my toenails--Julie's handiwork--still hadn't started to chip. They matched the blue of the tiles beneath the pool, like stripes on the Greek flag.

I slipped into the water. It was warm, and bore no shock to my ankles, knees, thighs. After such a big dinner, I was surprised I didn't sink straight to the bottom--instead, I floated to the surface, stretching my arms above my head, sweeping languidly into the center of the pool beneath a cloak of blue glass like I was skimming across the surface of the very ocean, like I was a part of it.

A girl, the water, the sky.

Kind of like this was a God thing.

I didn't know it until this moment, but this was what I needed. This is what I had gone away for. This moment of true tranquility, of peace. My soul felt lighter, like someone had poked it full of holes and the worry and aching and sadness had leaked out.

I felt the sunlight on my face, and in that moment, reader, I think I might have felt something like God. I didn't hear God. I had never heard Him--and I wasn't sure the people I knew who said He spoke to them had ever really heard Him either. But I kind of... _felt_ it. It wasn't like at church. There, it was always too noisy. Even during prayers, I could almost feel everyone's thoughts crowding me, elbowing my concentration out of the way. I was never good at prayers. If I ever spoke aloud, I was always hyper-aware of every word, measuring my tone, weighing my words for heresies.

There was no judgement here. There was only a waiting silence that yawned open to me like it was listening without rules or expectations or barriers, and the _sloosh_ of my body--just a body, not inherently sinful or pure--simply moving through the water. The quiet tangle of unspoken and unspeakable prayer.

"Becca?"

That voice. It wasn't my imagination, and it certainly wasn't God. I nearly capsized. Water went everywhere as I righted myself, and I went under as I realized I'd floated into the deep end and couldn't touch the bottom. A hand touched me, pulled me to the shallower ground, and I flailed back, splashing everywhere.

Splashing Percy.

He was dripping wet. His black curls were plastered to his forehead. Droplets clung to his eyelashes. His wide mouth was open in surprise, his shoulders just visible as they emerged from the surface of the pool. He had...shoulders. I mean, of course he did. He was a human being with all his pieces present and accounted for (as far as I knew-- _stop it, Becca)_. Before, I just hadn't given much thought to his shoulders, or the shape of them, which was... _objectively_...not terrible. And now I was, because he was here, in front of me, half-naked (I assumed, because I wasn't looking down and couldn't confirm his other half) and looking extremely surprised to see me.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. I located the nearest ladder and quickly considered whether to scramble for my towel, but it was too far, and Percy was too close, and my searchlight-white legs were clearly visible if distorted beneath the surface of the water.

I was in my swimsuit, with Percy, completely alone.

_This is a sin_. _You're alone with a boy half-naked and this is a sin. You're a stumbling block. You're an obstruction between Percy and God_.

I calmed myself. I had no interest in Percy. And from the way he was staring at me, I immediately assumed he no longer had any interest in me, either.

I dropped my arms. It felt like unbuttoning a blouse. I suppressed the urge to cool my hot cheek against my shoulder.

"I didn't know you were here," he said at last. He sounded breathless, like he'd been swimming for hours, but he must have only just arrived. The pool was big, but did he only just spot me? Was he lying? Was this all planned?

"Only for about ten minutes--"

"No," he cut me off. "At the hotel."

"Really?" I said. "I met your sister last night. I thought you were in New York?"

He looked up at the ceiling, doing the vague impression of someone rolling their eyes.

"There was a change of plans," he said. "I arrived this morning. She told me I should come for a swim."

"I think your sister might be stalking me," I said.

He gave a small, self-conscious laugh. "Maybe. I...told her a little bit about you. But she didn't tell me you were here."

"Well," I said, swimming a foot backwards. I was turning pink, I could feel it. My face was burning. I was having immense difficulty in not letting my sinful eyes trail downward. "I'm here."

"Yes," he said. He wasn't paddling. He could stand flat-footed with his chin above the water. I hadn't realized he was that much taller than me. Not like I cared. "How are you?"

This was very polite for this sort of meeting. I half-expected him to ask after my family next, then enquire after my health.

"I'm fine," I said. "Thank you for...well, whatever it was that made my family buy this vacation for me. It was a lovely surprise."

He nodded. "It was Charlie's idea. I was happy to help."

This was so ridiculous. We might as well be exchanging pleasantries in the nude for how awkward I felt. And of course, unbidden images of Wesson here--also half-naked, arms slung around Percy--kept floating to my mind.

Someone would have to bring up the letter, wouldn't they? We couldn't let it sit unspoken between us. It was too unwieldy. Too important.

It wasn't going to be me.

"And how is your family?" he asked.

I laughed, but instead of his looking confused at my reaction, he... _smiled_. With teeth. Genuinely, like he was pleased to see me enjoy myself. What had happened to him? Had he had a lobotomy? Or was this his admission, as well...that he knew this was just as weird as I did, but he didn't mind, either?

"They're fine," I said. "Mom decided she's allergic to olives, so threw out everything containing olive oil in our fridge and cupboards, then realized it was her new perfume. Cynthia's at Disneyland, and Julie is..." My smile faltered. "She's fine."

He nodded in understanding. I'd said my piece about Charlie. There was no point saying it again.

"And you're enjoying your stay?"

"Very much," I said.

He nodded again. I fumbled in the silence, looking for a way to extend this conversation, but not sure why.

"I never pegged you as a swimmer," I said. _Well done, Becca. Keep saying those words_.

He looked at me blankly, blinking his long lashes. "Why?"

"You wore a sweater to Charlie's pool party."

"Ah." He scratched behind his ear. A nervous reaction. "Well, yes. I am. A swimmer, I mean. I did a bit at school."

_School_. I nearly grimaced with the effort of holding my questions down.

"Cool," I said. "I didn't."

"Did you do any sports?" he asked pleasantly.

"Do readathons count?" I asked. My legs were starting to ache from treading water. I began to paddle to the side of the pool. Percy followed me with ease. "I liked walking. Unfortunately not an elective in PE."

"I like it, too," he said, surprising me. "It's very popular in England. We used to go out on Sundays after chapel. There are a lot of footpaths--trails there, through farmers' fields."

"You're just allowed to walk through them? No one shoots you?"

"There're public rights of way," he said matter-of-factly, as though I should understand what he was talking about. "Anyone can walk through them. Though sometimes the cows might try to kill you."

"I guess I'd rather die by cow than by human," I said.

"Yes, trampling was always my preferred way to go," he replied, deadpan.

We were both hanging off the edge of the pool, forearms pressed to the rough tile. I chanced a glance at him sideways. He was glancing right back at me. We both looked away.

A young couple came in through the glass-doors, hand-in-hand. They slipped, giggling, into the sauna.

"So," I said.

"Yes," Percy said.

We both stared at the empty doors ahead of us.

I had to do it. I couldn't stand it anymore.

"You could have just told me."

Ah, yes. Smooth work, Becca. On the offensive immediately--no warming up with, _So I read your letter_ , or _I'm so sorry that happened to you._ Immediately, I was right back outside the Cliffhouse, pushing those flowers into Percy's chest.

Of course, his reply was deep and bristling.

"I think I explained myself well enough," he said.

"Maybe," I said. "But it could have saved a lot of heartache if you'd said something sooner."

"You ended it?" he asked. He was watching my face with an intense expression, his jaw set with something like anger or anxiety. "With Wesson."

I nodded, just once. Everything about him seemed to relax, from his dark eyes to his lips to his jaw to his shoulders. He sank an inch into the water.

"I'm not sorry to hear it," he said.

"Neither am I." I sucked on my lips. "He said he was going to Italy. The day before my graduation. I called him after I got your letter. He was still at the base."

"He's always been uncomfortable with the truth."

"I'm sorry about what he did to you," I said. "And to Grace."

"You're right," he said. "I should have told you sooner."

"No harm done," I said lightly. "At least, not in the long run."

"He's very charming," he said. "He can suck you in."

"He almost did," I said. "Fortunately someone pulled me out in time."

I looked at him again. He looked back at me. His lashes _were_ really long for a boy's. And he _was_ good-looking, if you liked the well-groomed. Before, I'd found him too stuffy to be attractive. Now, unguarded and more relaxed, even though drawn with bad memories, he was...not unattractive. Quite the opposite.

_Bad Becca. It is not your job to lust. Men are to be ensnared, then married. Don't put the cart before the horse_.

I didn't want to ensnare Percy. I didn't want to marry him. I just wanted to _talk_ to him. Even in these brief minutes, it felt very different from talking to Wesson. Being with Wesson had felt like an act of willful disobedience; from the moment I saw him, I had felt a spark of electricity that must have unleashed my inner arsonist, keen to burn every bridge.

Maybe it was those kisses with Wesson. Maybe Julie was right, and they had spoiled me. With Percy, I was instantly more self-aware. I was taking my time, and holding myself back, and every moment I did, intrusive thoughts from church and Mom that had stayed well back with Wesson were slipping like viruses into my brain, intent on multiplying and spreading. And this _was_ different. This was more than surface wit and flirting that hid a lifetime of bad character and worse decisions.

I liked the way Percy was looking at me. I didn't know what it was he was looking at, at first, then I realized--he wasn't looking at my lips, or my chest, or my multitudes of bare skin. He was looking directly into my eyes.

What had Grace said? That he thought I had _soulful eyes_. I'd been complimented on them before. But no one had ever looked into them like this.

What had I done to deserve this treatment? I'd laughed at him. I'd thrown his flowers and his request for a date back in his face. And now he was here like all was forgiven.

Was all forgiven?

"All right, then," I said, ready to apply my usual array of youth group icebreaker questions, but out of interest rather than a want to fill the silence. "Favorite movie from the past year."

"Sorry?"

"Favorite movie," I said again. "Past year. Broadway shows don't count."

"Damn," he said. "What about West End?"

Was that a joke? Percy, making a joke? He was smiling again. He had nice teeth--very white and even and just the right size for his wide mouth. England or not, his parents hadn't skimped on the orthodontics.

"Movie, go," I said.

" _Romeo and Juliet_ ," he answered immediately.

"No, it's not."

I looked at him incredulously, hunting his face for signs of teasing, but he was dead serious.

"They're idiots," I said. "Romeo and Juliet were hormonal teenage idiots."

"Relatable, in a way," Percy said. "I liked the music. And I thought it was cleverly done."

"I guess Leonardo diCaprio _is_ very cute," I admitted.

"True," Percy said without the faintest hint of irony, and I started, the hairs standing up on my neck. "Clare Danes isn't bad, either."

_This is weird,_ I thought. _But I don't mind._

"Your turn," he said.

"You're going to laugh at me."

"Likely," he said.

I sighed. " _Mars Attacks!_ "

He raised an eyebrow. It had an interesting effect in its movement of his features--it made him almost _fetching_.

"I'm waiting for you to laugh," he said.

"The only time I'm laughing is at that hilarious movie," I said.

"It's ridiculous," he said. "Don't they kill the aliens with banjo music?"

"Yodeling. And that's why I like it. It doesn't take itself seriously. Not something I suppose you'd understand."

" _Touché._ But I was expecting _Citizen Kane_ or something."

"Ditto," I said. “But then we haven’t got to our favorite movies of 1941."

I smiled at him. He was smiling at me. We were smiling at each other--Becca Bailey and William "Billy" Percy. Just a pair of regular happy people who hadn’t both kissed the same boy.

"Favorite music then," I said.

"You go first," he said. "I did, last time."

"DC Talk, Jars of Clay," I said. "A bit of Amy Grant, though Mom thinks she's getting too big for her britches."

Percy frowned. "I've never heard of them."

"That's because you're a heathen who eschews KRST Christian Radio."

"It's not fair if I don't know whether or not to judge you just because I don't know who they are," he said.

"Why?" I asked with raised eyebrows. "Is yours embarrassing?"

"No," he said, but he was looking at the wall again.

"Yodeling?" I asked. "Is that why _Mars Attacks!_ offended you?"

"Not quite," he said.

"Well? It's going to be Bach or Mozart or something, isn't it?"

"I am...a really big fan of the Spice Girls," he said. He rushed to explain before I could interject. "I mean, I like a lot of other things, too. Michael Jackson, Oasis...but something about the Spice Girls just...makes me happy."

"William Percy," I said in awe. If we were drinking, I'd have clinked glasses with him. "You _do_ surprise me."

"I aim to please," he said.

I looked down at my hands. My fingers had shriveled to prunes.

"Sauna?" Percy suggested, looking at his own wrinkled hands.

I almost said no. A pool was one thing, but a sauna? The other couple had left (a bit handsy with each other), and it was now an empty, dark, enclosed room. We'd be the only two there. The only two there in our swimsuits.

"Sure," I said, and I watched with interest as he climbed out of the pool.

We walked together to the little wooden door. Percy was wearing only shorts. Percy was wearing only shorts and dripping. I was as naked as the day as I first drew breath--if I'd been born with a swimsuit on; still, that's what it felt like. Fleshy and exposed.

He held the door open for me, a gentleman. I wasn't cold, but I was shivering.

I went inside.

He followed.

The door swung shut behind us.

Inside, it was very red. Air shimmered above the hot rocks; the thermometer's mercury brushed 160 degrees. Sweat beaded up on my exposed skin. Slicked my upper lip.

I eased myself onto the lowest bench, arms folded, holding myself in. Percy sat next to me, but casually--back against the wall, feet up on the bench next to me, toes stretching. If I looked sideways (which I didn't...no more than out of the corner of my eye), I would see a sparse dusting of black hair across his lean, well-formed chest, and another (I imagined very clearly) beneath his belly button.

I leaned my head back against the bench behind me. Breathed out. I could feel his eyes on me.

"You're right, by the way," I said.

"I often am," he said wryly. He shifted his feet. Rested his elbows on his knees and folded his arms together as he leaned toward me. "About what?"

"My family is ridiculous."

"Becca--"

"My mother embarrasses me constantly," I said. "Cynthia's...unpredictable. Julie is the best person in the world, but she can be so _frustrating_ \--"

"I had no right to speak badly about your family," Percy said. His low voice filled the room, swelling against the cedar planks, vibrating in my ears. "I was rude. I'm sorry."

"It doesn't stop you being right," I said. I snorted. "Do you want examples? How about this: for all of our sixteenth birthdays, my mother gave each of us a notarized letter allowing us to get married."

There was a brief pause.

"That's..." Percy searched for words. "...a unique gift."

"I think she was disappointed when both Julie and I aged out of needing to use ours. And yet if she was here right now, she'd probably sweep me to the walk-in clinic to make sure my maidenhood was still intact."

"Would she?" Percy said, plainly alarmed.

I thought. "No," I said. I reddened, realizing too late that I had implied that our being alone here was why that certain check would be required. "As far as she's concerned, vaginas are mythical." My face grew hotter. I'd just said the word _vagina_ in front of William Percy. If God were to smite me, He'd do it now. But I was still standing--sitting, half naked. I grew braver. "As are periods."

"I'm confused," Percy said, not in the least put off by the words I was saying and much more by the content. "That seems...self-contradictory."

"Welcome to my life," I replied. I sighed and smiled at him. "I'm sorry. I'm ranting."

"I'm enjoying it," he said with his own small smile.

I laughed. "I'm glad I can amuse you."

"Amusement is one of your many gifts," he said, still grinning at me. Had he ever smiled so much in his life? I wasn't sure. I truly liked what it did to his face. He seemed so much more human, so much younger. Like a weight had been lifted from every muscle in his body. I liked the way his dark eyes settled on me, and the light in them. Some of the boys who had taken an interest in me before had had such flat eyes--like there were no workings beneath the surface. Behind Percy's, it seemed like there were planets, galaxies, multitudes. Our conversation was easy. For all my panicked, intrusive memories of years and years of sermons and youth group Bible studies, those dirty words were the only things that made this situation feel wrong. If I stripped those away, sitting here alone with Percy would have felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"Mom says I laugh too much," I said.

He scoffed. " _Now_ can I speak badly of your mother?"

"Come on," I said. "Your turn. What are your parents like?"

He shrugged. His shoulders brushed the wood paneling. His pectoral muscles flexed.

Another panicked realization entered my brain, whirling a cane and wearing tap shoes:

_Oh my goodness, I think I'm attracted to William Percy_.

"I don't see them often," he said, oblivious to the fact that I was now focusing on regulating my breathing and trying not to panic. "But we get along well, when we do see each other. Dad buys our affection, which would sting more if it didn’t extend to everyone he’s ever met and not just his children. Mom is a bit ruthless in the world of business, but otherwise is very...jolly, I think is the best word. Also a talented singer. A family trait I didn't inherit, unfortunately."

"Play any instruments?" I asked, forcing my thoughts to follow this conversation through.

His smile reappeared--again, so easily. "Five cords on the guitar," he said. "And a bit of piano. You?"

"I loved my kazoo when I was a kid," I said. "But it gave my mother headaches."

"My mother said the same about my singing." He shifted, breathed out. "I'm getting too hot," he said.

Skin prickled on my face--I was, too, and the blush wasn't helping.

"I should go shower," I said.

I froze. Did that sound like an offer of something?

I didn’t know. He offered his hand. I looked at it.

I took it.

He helped me to my feet.

Our hands lingered. My heart began another sprint beneath my ribs.

"Have dinner with me tonight?" I asked.

I looked up at him. I could feel my pulse in the roof of my mouth. My neck was aching. My hands felt tingling and light.

"Becca Bailey," Percy replied, eyes meeting mine, smile meeting my smile. Suddenly I understood all those girls felt in the grocery store--how they melted beneath the weight of his voice. And he had never looked at them like this. "It would be a pleasure."

#

Grace joined us.

It wasn't exactly what I intended, but I didn't mind. Because, reader?

The Percy siblings were _adorable_.

At first, Percy was apologetic; he appeared with his sister clinging to his arm and with the distinct air of someone who had literally been glomped onto all the way from the top floor. He dislodged her onto a chair and she plopped down next to me, her knee-high leather boots squeaking. It was only then that I saw she'd had something under her arm: a photo album.

"Do you just keep that here, or...?" I began as she set it down in front of me.

"Mom FedExed it," Grace replied. She scooted closer to me and flipped open to the first page. "Here's Billy and me an on my first day of elementary school. Thanks, Sam!" The waiter--Sam, I presumed--had just slid a basket of bread and a jug of water onto our table. "Now, serious question: what do you think of our matching haircuts?"

I grabbed the photo album and peered closer. Indeed, there they were: seven-year-old Percy and five-year-old Grace, both with blunt black bowl-cuts and wide smiles, and wearing overalls. But for the slight height difference, they could have been twins.

"Adorable," I said. "Do you both still have matching overalls?"

"Mom has an entire storage unit of all our baby stuff," Grace said. "For when we have our own kids someday." I flinched, just slightly--Grace didn't notice, and made nothing apparent of any discomfort with the mention of having children. Taking her cue, I, of course, said nothing, because I was not my mother.

Grace, apparently, had not had the same training. "You want to have kids, don't you, Becca?" she asked me, flipping to the next page--Grace, Percy, and a cocker spaniel at Halloween, all dressed as pumpkins. I wondered if their parents got discounts on bulk orders of kids' clothing.

"Um," I said, "someday. Not for a while, though." Not like I knew what I was going to do next. Even if I wasn't going to college, I had sworn to myself that I would not opt for starting a family at eighteen, like some of my classmates had. Children were not to be a fallback option.

Percy and I both studiously ignored the significant looks she was shooting him.

"Where's this?" I said, cheeks hot, as I pointed to a yellowish photograph--the light faded, obviously taken on a bright day--of little Percy and little Grace at some sort of marketplace, at a stall that sold fruit. It looked like a farmer's market, only hotter.

"That's Cairo," she said.

And that was where our childhoods diverged.

Where our family photo albums were full of me and Cynthia coming to blows in neighbors' kiddie pools and dressed in inoffensive Bible-themed costumes for the church's Trick-or-Treat Alternative Evenings, page after page of the book was Percy and his sister as small children, already off on adventures. Cairo, Lebanon, Cyprus. Athens, Rome, Paris. Percy--holding out an ice cream cone for his sister to lick. The two with their parents--their mother a woman I did recognize from the cover of _US Weekly_ , actually, looking back. Percy--trying to lift his sister onto his shoulders so she could see over the railings at a zoo. Grace, looking up at him with the exact same expression of adoration with which she looked at him now over a dinner of pasta that was rapidly going cold. Percy and Grace spoke of their parents the same way I’d heard grandparents speak of their grandchildren—with an amount of pride, but also distance, as though their mom and dad had gone off to college in a different state and that they didn’t hear much from them anymore. I guessed that was what happened when you grew up independently wealthy, with extra emphasis on the _independent_.

Grace pointed at the next photograph toward the back of the book. They were a bit older--maybe eight and six--and Percy had definitely started to look more boyish at this point, and Grace had grown her hair long and was wearing a dress with a reindeer on the chest. "This is us sitting outside our house in London after it caught on fire."

"What?" I said, arching my neck to get a better look at their little faces as they sat on a curb, looking both bored and, in Percy's case, extremely annoyed.

"It wasn't serious," Percy cut in, making a grab for the photo album at last.

"It was still your fault, though," Grace said to him. "You want to tell her or should I?"

Percy grunted and slumped back in his chair, frowning with the force of someone trying to stymy laughter. "I was only being helpful."

"Billy--" That still made me want to burst out laughing, that Billy. "--was always _very_ helpful. He loved to do the vacuuming. Mom used to pay him in M&Ms every day he vacuumed. One day, just before Christmas, he decided he would be _excessively_ helpful and vacuum up all the ashes in the fireplace, while the fire was still lit."

"No!" I said, while Percy looked at the ceiling, color flooding his cheeks.

"I don't remember much about it," Grace said, "but I _do_ remember that our sitting room smelled like burnt hair for weeks after."

"I never ate an M&M again," Percy said.

"Ooh," Grace said, flipping past the next few pages. "And then there's--"

I just caught one glimpse of a photo--one of them with a boy who looked quite a bit like a young Wesson--before Percy reached over and flipped the photo album shut.

"Your dinner's getting cold," he said.

His expression had lost its humor. I didn't have to wonder why.

I took the hint. "Tell me about Paris," I requested of Grace, sliding the photo album away. "I've never been there."

"Oh, Becca!" Grace crowed. She threw her arms around my shoulders and squeezed. "You're going to absolutely _love it_."

She pulled away. Over her shoulder, Percy was watching me--not with lingering anger of Wesson avoided, but with a calm, inquisitive expression, and--it looked to me--that he was trying very hard not to smile.

#

I'd been at the Emerald-on-Sea for less than forty-eight hours and it felt like I'd simultaneously been there for years and minutes. I'd read a total of twenty pages of one of my twelve books, I'd eaten two meals with Grace Percy, and now, the afternoon of my second full day, I was sitting on a bench at the entry point of the hedge maze in the formal gardens, waiting for William Percy to appear.

If someone had told me just a few days beforehand that this was how I'd spend my time on vacation, I would have laughed at them and cancelled my reservations. What had happened to me? No, more important: what had happened to Percy? It wasn't just the letter--it wasn't just the revelation that he wasn't truly the jerk I'd thought he was. Something had shifted. Changed.

Maybe I had.

"Hi."

I stood. Percy was approaching. Jeans, button down with a questionable abstract print over a T-shirt--it didn't matter. All I could see was his face, and the subtle difference between a bored, haughty Percy and the Percy who was pleased to see me. I'd come to know that face well over the past few days. Every time we met.

"Hi," I said.

He came to a stop two feet from me. We didn't hug, nor shake hands. He stood with his hands in his pockets; I stood with my arms crossed over my chest. The afternoon sun kissed his skin golden; it brought out the slightest tint of red in his black hair.

"Walk?" he said.

"Walk," I confirmed.

He did not take my arm, and I did not offer it. We entered into the cocooning shade of the entrance, walled on both sides by carefully trimmed evergreens at least ten feet tall. There was little room between us; both of our arms brushed the branches on each side of the path. The grass was half-moss, and spongy beneath our feet.

"I didn't know we even had these in the U.S.," I said. "I thought they only came in corn."

"We've made changes," Percy said, reaching out to brush his fingers across the shiny leaves. "Charlie's Mom designed it for us. In England they'd be made from box hedge, but it didn't fit in here. This is American holly. As an extra bonus--it really hurts if you try to break through it. It rather discourages cheating."

"What happens if we get lost?" I asked.

He shrugged, and drew a brown packet from his jeans pocket.

"I have rations," he said.

It was a bag of M&Ms.

"I though you swore those off," I said, smiling.

"I did. But I thought perhaps now would be the time to work through my past trauma."

"Because we'll be lost in a maze and I won't be able to run away?"

He laughed that odd, warming laugh. "Exactly."

We took the next left at a three-way fork, then a right.

"Do you miss it?" I asked. "England."

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "I've spent most of my life there. I’ve always felt...not really Canadian, and not really American, and we lived so many places I didn’t truly feel like I belonged in any of them. But England has served that purpose for me...as my parents intended it to."

"Even though it's just school."

"It's been home to me for a long time," he said. "And when Grace arrived, it was even more so."

It made sense, though part of me ached for him for having felt without that anchor for so long, as out of sorts nearly everywhere as he’d clearly felt at New Hope. At the same time, I was slightly jealous at his ability to remove himself--to step away in a way that I couldn’t.

"You and your sister get along very well."

"Shouldn't we?"

"I'm just impressed," I said. We turned another corner. Dead end. We turned back.

"There's nothing to be impressed with," Percy answered. "She's the best person in the world."

"Do we need to pit her against Julie?" I asked. "They can have a nice-off."

"Throw Charlie in as well," Percy said. "All we'd have to do is put them in a room with one door.” His voice went high. “'After you, Charlie--No, after you, Grace.’ They'd all starve."

I laughed. "What did we do to deserve them, anyway?"

"Not the slightest idea," Percy replied. "Next left."

He was wrong, of course. We turned back. I looked up at the sky through the high edges of the trees, trying to judge how far we'd travelled. As far as I could gather--about ten feet. Still, it felt as though we were completely isolated, outside with only the earth and the air and the trees around us. Celia would love the peace here, the space it would give us to talk freely without our mothers straining to hear.

"Are you okay?" Percy asked me suddenly, and I stopped at a corner. I looked down and realized I was tugging hard on the broken heart of Celia's friendship necklace, threatening to snap the chain.

I frowned up at him. "Yes," I said. "Why?"

"You seem angry," he replied, meeting my eyes with gentle curiosity.

"Maybe a little," I said. "And not really angry. More frustrated."

"Celia’s left?"

"You heard?"

"Word always makes it through," he said. He guided me onward, brushing my elbow ever-so-gently with his warm hand.

"Yes," I said. "For the next year. And Julie's not in the best of moods, as you might imagine..." I didn't press it further, and he didn't respond to that. "And my mother is...my mother."

"How is your relationship with her?"

"Percy," I said, "have you tricked me into a therapy session?"

"Just curious," he replied mildly.

"She's just...not well," I said, not needing any further encouragement to spill the words inside of me. I never needed to tell people about my mother--everyone in Belleport already knew her; however, nor was I entitled to speak plainly. If I started spouting my own thoughts and feelings to those who had already formed their own opinions of Barb Bailey, I would be branded a spoiled and ungrateful child. It was almost a relief to have had Percy cut a path for me. "She always has been. Physically, and...she _thinks_ she's sick, so maybe she is? I don't know. I mean, I love my mother. She is funny, though mostly unintentionally, and protective and...she's my mother. But sometimes she wants to make me hurl myself from a cliff."

We turned a corner--another dead end.

“Well,” Percy said drily, “at least it wasn’t a cliff.”

I held out my hand. "M&Ms," I said.

His eyebrows rose. He took the packet out of his pocket. I tore off a corner and poured them into my hand, and began to sprinkle them along the ground to trace our path.

"Clever," he said.

"Thank you."

"So back to cliff-throwing," Percy said.

I sighed. I unstuck a yellow M&M from my hand and chucked it in our wake.

"You know what she's like," I said. "She's obsessed with what other people think about her."

"Why?" Percy said.

"Julie and I have theories," I said. "I mean, part of it is just because that's who she is, and the culture she was raised in--appearances are important in Belleport, and especially at church. With all the rules...one misstep and you lose all of your friends in one day."

"They don't sound like friends, then."

"I know," I said. "Maybe it's more like family." I thought of Celia, her mother, the restrictions over what she could and couldn't do, what cultures she was allowed to subscribe to. She hadn't been there to wave Celia off on the bus to Mexico. I thought of my own aunt, who my mother and Aunt Bernice didn't talk about. We all knew what had happened to her, though-- _Aunt Suzanne_ had become a whispered threat anytime I or my sisters became a bit too wayward. My Aunt Suzanne, black sheep, who had gotten pregnant at seventeen, was kicked out of her parents' house, and ended up giving birth on a street somewhere in Portland. No husband, no health insurance, no home, no parents or siblings to lean on. I had never met her; I had no idea what she looked like--all of her photos had been torn out of the family photo albums. For all I knew, she might have been dead.

"My family's close," I carried on, "but I think that in some families, love is conditional. Mom's so afraid we'll get ourselves in trouble that the whole thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. She builds it up so much in her head that I'm afraid that if we _do_ mess up--if I go through another Goth phase, or if Cynthia is caught messing around with a boy--she'll make it worse just because that's what she's prepared herself to do."

"That might be a fair assessment," Percy replied calmly. "But your mother cares for you a great deal. You might be underestimating her."

"You're taking her side, now?" I said, more surprised than annoyed.

"No," he said. "I'm only challenging yours.”

“I’m not used to rising to challenges.”

“That doesn’t sound like you.”

“That’s not what you said at the Cliffhouse.”

He didn’t even pause. “I think I was wrong.” He licked his lips and looked at me. “Continue.”

“You weren’t wrong,” I said, and it was almost a relief to admit it. It had hurt what he said, not because he was wrong, but because he most definitely wasn’t. “I’ve been well-trained. Sometimes I want to get up in front of church and scream. But I just sit on my hands and keep quiet because you were right, I’m not brave.”

“I really don’t think--”

“I feel like,” I cut him off rudely, wanting to get the words out, “the church has been my identity for most of my life. And now my identity is wanting to leave it, and I just...can’t.”

It was the first time I’d said that word, “leave,” out loud. I felt a thud in my chest, a little protest of the heart. I wasn’t sure it was the right phrase. Did I want to leave? My brain said yes, and my heart agreed. But...

“Leave-leave?” he asked. “Leave church entirely, or just your church?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said.

“Because you know women can be ordained in England.”

“Oh, shut up!” I laughed. “Okay, my turn to ask you probing questions.”

“No, no, one more,” Percy said cheerily. “Would you mind please telling me more about your Goth phase?"

“Definitely not.” I grinned. “ _My turn_.”

“Your turn,” he said with a good-natured sigh.

I dropped my voice just in case someone was listening in on the other side of the hedge.

"Does your family know about..."

I stopped, hoping he'd fill in the blanks. I wasn't quite sure how to finish the sentence. Bisexual? That, thanks to my rapidly developing crush on him ( _look at him, with his tousled hair and his bone structure and his eyes and his_ lips _and the way he's looking at me and his ridiculous accent)_ , is what I hoped he was. Because if he was gay, I wasn't sure I could carry on this conversation in the same frame of mind. And he _wasn't_ gay, was he? He'd asked me out. He'd very happily spent these past two days with me, and was walking with me through this very private maze. But he hadn't renewed his affections. He hadn't pursued me again. Had his feelings changed, if they ever existed in the first place? Or had I been a trial--a girl he liked well enough? Or was I just a friend?

His friendship should have been enough. But I was enjoying his company to the point where I gave up books for him. I kept thinking about him in the swimming pool.

...I really hoped he wasn't gay.

"Do they know about Wesson?" Percy said instead of _gay_ or _bisexual_ , finishing my sentence with a word that clarified nothing. We were coming closer to the center of the maze; I could feel it. Something about it felt far from the starting point. "Grace does, but only after the fact. She wouldn't have been with him if she'd known."

"And your parents?"

His expression briefly darkened. "I have a feeling my mother suspected something. She never said anything, but she never encouraged it, either. I'll never tell my father."

"But what happens if you meet someone?" I said. I crossed my arms across my chest, hugging my cardigan close. The sun was starting to hang low, refusing to reach beyond the lip of the glossy-leaved trees.

"A man?" he said.

I nodded. "Doesn't it somewhat limit your choices?"

He shrugged. He wasn't looking at me. I wished he would.

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe someday things will change. I'd be able to hold hands with another man in public." He looked down at where our own hands were, inches apart. "Maybe even marry him. But honestly, it's not a thing I feel I need to worry about at this moment."

_Is it because of me?_ I selfishly wanted to ask. _Is it because you like me? Is it because you want to be with me?_

Or maybe it was because he was only nineteen and marriage was the last thing on his mind. He wasn't raised by Barb Bailey. He didn't wear a True Love Waits ring on the ring finger of his left hand. He didn't have to get up in front of eligible bachelors once per year in a floaty white dress and pledge his virginity to God, though I’d have loved to have seen that.

I didn't know how to handle this. I didn't know anyone who was gay--though to be honest, I did have some suspicions about Pastor Mike. I was going to say the wrong things. I was going to feel the wrong feelings and think the wrong thoughts. Would he want to be friends with me if I opened my mouth and out streamed an endless river of ignorance? Would he still like me if I said all the things that were misguided and wrong?

"Well," I said. "I hope you can. Eventually. If you want to."

"Thank you, Becca," he said, and for some reason, the way he said my name made me suddenly want to melt.

We came to another corner, and just when I was about to turn back, we erupted into sudden sunshine.

It was the promised cliff: a private bit of rock hanging over the sea, with a bench just big enough for two people and the water sparkling grey-blue-gold at our feet. At our backs, the holly trees were a perfectly straight, green fence between us and what was behind us; before us were only sun and wind and water.

I approached, but Percy caught me by the arm.

“No cliff-throwing?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Promise.”

I sat. Percy sank down next to me, very straight and stiff in the seat.

Still--our legs touched. My fingers flexed. I wanted so badly to reach for his hand.

I could not imagine wanting this just a few weeks ago. I remembered being in that car with him with him hunched over the steering wheel--me dreading the hour to come, wishing that afternoon would be over. The painful conversation over a game of pool. His voice prodding past the heavy velvet curtains at church, pronouncing me a Five.

Then those strange, unexpected moments that cut through the unpleasantness: his directness in asking me about my church, my faith--something he couldn't or wouldn't understand; his insistence that the checkout girl at the grocery store was being paid time and a half; his ill-conceived request for a date on my graduation night, and the flowers that he tipped into the footwell of his car.

Now we'd spent so many hours in conversation--thoughtful and silly and reaching deep below the surface. Now I'd met his sister, whom he loved. Now he was next to me, so close I could have held his hand.

Had he changed, this young man sitting here beside me, squinting into the sun and with his hands in his lap like he was thinking more thoughts that he couldn't find the words to express without pen and paper? Or was I the one who had changed?

My heart was thudding like a motorboat careening across the waves; my fingers were itching, desperate to slip across his knee. His hands were strong, well-formed. Delicate and long-fingered from the knuckles. Elegant folded on his thighs.

How did I look to him now? Was I more to him than a pair of _soulful eyes_?

"Well," I said, pulling myself to my feet. "Maybe we should get back."

Immediately, Percy was on his feet next to me. Looking at me--eyes meeting mine, then searching my face with butterfly-light strokes of his gaze: to my nose, to my lips, to my cheeks, neck. Back to my eyes. Back and forth. Searching.

_What am I to you?_ I wanted to ask. _What do you truly want me to be?_

I said nothing. He said less. Instead, he touched my hand--fingertips to the back of my palm. They fluttered across my knuckles. Turned it over.

He laced his fingers through mine.

"Percy," I whispered.

I tilted my head upward. He tilted his head downward.

He pressed his forehead against mine.

And he closed his eyes.

In a brief second, I could have changed everything. I could have lifted my chin just a few inches and pressed my lips to his. In that moment, I could have known the answer to the question I so desperately wanted to ask--I could taste his smooth, soft mouth; I could mingle his breath with mine. I could feel his arms around me and gauge their tension--if he wanted me, or if I was just an experimental taste.

But it didn't matter what he wanted, or what I wanted, because in that moment we were touching each other with a careful, testing pressure. He wanted me with him, in whatever regard. I wanted him, so much that my knuckles cracked as I held his hand. So much that I felt tears prick my eyes.

But I was not brave. I only stared at him, my own eyes wide open, alighting on his nose, eyelashes, cheekbones. He breathed out through his nostrils. It tickled my cheek.

He made no further move, and neither did I. I closed my eyes. We stayed like that for a minute, hands entwined, forehead pressed against forehead, the water before us, glittering. The sun kissing our parted lips.

And then he pulled away.

It felt like a blanket being tugged off in the cold. I nearly grabbed for him, reeled him back. I wanted him to wrap himself in me.

_Kiss me,_ I thought, battling against the sermons and lessons that threatened to infiltrate from the back of my brain--my mother's voice slipping in, reminding me that affection was wrong.

I focused on the touch of his fingers, shut my eyes tight. _Please kiss me_.

But I let him go. Our hands untangled. He patted my arm. His hand was shaking.

Then he guided me onward, back the way we came, palm pressed to neutral territory between my shoulder blades.

"Let's go back," he said.

And I obeyed, feeling, like every time I'd spent with Percy, more confused than when we began.


	15. A Dance?

If I wandered the halls in my bathrobe, would Percy eventually appear, drawn from his own sleep by my unrest? Would he hear my pacing? Would he feel my unease and confusion and mangled hopes through the air? Did we have that connection now--that meeting of minds that only shared space and careful touch could bring?

I didn't sleep that night. It was my last twelve hours in the Emerald-on-Sea and I wanted to relish it. Not like I _could_ have slept. My brain wouldn't turn off. Reading was dull. I tried the baseball game--I flipped over just in time to watch the Mariners win by two runs. Mom and Dad would be celebrating in front of the TV at home. People were probably fist-pumping down in the bar, or in other rooms, cheering on our team as they crept closer to the Playoffs. I usually watched the games--I enjoyed them most in person, when arriving in the stands at the Kingdome felt like walking onto a different planet: the unreal, vivid green of the grass, the smell of hot dogs and popcorn in the air, the swell of conversation of the crowd, the crack of the bat and the brash organ music over the loudspeakers.

Percy would have hated it.

I turned off the television. I tossed in my bed for two hours, then got up and flicked aside the curtains to watch the lights of the hotel bob across the waves. I considered pulling out the Gideon Bible (something I'd been surprised to find made it into the drawers of the Emerald-on-Sea; I vividly imagined a group of suited men piling into a tiny rowboat with crates and crates of hardback Bibles), but whenever I opened my Bible without forethought I always naturally turned to a letter from Paul, telling women they should cover their hair or shut their mouths in church. I was in the mood for a story--maybe for Esther, a Jewish girl who married a Persian king and talked him round to not committing genocide against her people. Or maybe for Jesus. He was always pretty great. Being kind to women and children and the poor. He never picked up a stone to throw at a prostitute. He never asked if girls were virgins before he healed them.

I couldn't bring myself to open the drawer. I was sure I'd open the pages to something obscure. Some rule against holding hands with a man who wasn't kin. How pressing foreheads could lead a man astray from God's rightful path. Or maybe even something about how a girl could sacrifice her purity, but only if it meant somehow turning a man back from the sin of loving another man. I'd never heard of a verse about that, but from the way Pastor Mike talked about gay people, I was sure it must be in there, somewhere.

So I didn't open the Bible. Instead, I sat, marooned in the giant bed with my arms around my knees, my ears ringing in the silence. I turned the TV back on. It had gone to late-night static.

There was a knock at the door.

It was so quiet--so gentle--that I hardly heard it. I almost thought I'd imagined it with my addled, sleep-deprived brain until I heard it again--almost like a brush across the wood.

Was it just the delivery of the _Seattle Times_?

I threw the white terrycloth bathrobe on over my puffy kittens sleepshirt and pulled the belt tight.

"Hello?" I said--fruitlessly, as the door was soundproof. Still, I crept forward in silence.

Another gentle knock. Definitely not the _Seattle Times_.

I released the deadbolt. Inched open the door. Soft sidelight spilled across the hallway. A shadow reached up and scratched its hair.

"Hi," Percy said.

I blinked at him, wondering if I'd wished him into existence. If my silent, convoluted prayers for his visit had been answered.

"Hi," I said. I stepped back from the door, opening it wide.

He didn't budge. He stood in the doorway in his bathrobe--not hotel issue, but well-worn and navy blue--over a pair of shorts and a wrinkled T-shirt. His hair was mussed but he looked wide awake, like he, too, had been tossing and turning all night. He was holding two rectangular objects--when my eyes adjusted, I realized it was a VHS tape and a CD.

"Come in," I said with a grand swing of my arm.

He didn't move from the doorway. He was standing up so straight that I was sure one light push could have tipped him backward.

"Are you sure?" he asked. The CD case squeaked as he clutched it harder.

I nodded, finding his question both endearing and odd. It wasn't just that he was referring to my own judgement and uncertainty about having a boy in my room, but that he, too, had realized that he would be one. A boy. In my room. With me.

I shut the door behind him. The bed's curtains fluttered.

"I saw the light under your door," he said.

"Which you just happened to be walking past at two o'clock in the morning?"

"Yes," he said without hesitation. He looked down at the tape and CD. "Though I can't explain away these."

He handed them to me. The video was a used copy of _Mars Attacks_! The CD, still wrapped in cellophane, was _Heart in Motion_ by Amy Grant.

"I found the video in the break room," Percy said, scratching behind his ear. "The CD I had sent over on a boat yesterday. I don't know if you already have it, I just thought...you were leaving, and..." He stopped and looked briefly at the ceiling, jaw clenched. "You couldn't sleep, either?" he asked.

"No," I said. "I don't know why."

I did.

"Me neither," Percy said, "But I do know why. Here." He took the CD back from me and tore off the wrapping. He pulled open the armoire and pressed the power button on a CD player I hadn't known was there.

"I was just thinking," he said, "that you like dancing, and Charlie has reminded me several times that I was a prat for never asking you if you wanted to dance with me, and, well..."

"Percy--"

He turned, hand out, palm to the ceiling, long fingers open in welcome.

"If you want to," he said.

His eyes were apprehensive, his fingers unsteady.

My mouth was dry.

I took his hand. His warm fingers curled around mine.

The CD began. I knew it well--I did indeed already have a copy, and I'd listened to it enough times to know that the first song was not slow enough for the sort of dancing I wanted. I reached over and pressed the skip button three times. The dulcet tones of keyboard and strings swelled into the room-- _That's what Love is for_ , a song so popular--five years ago, at least--that Percy might have even heard it before.

"What rules are we dancing by, here?" I asked him, face flushed, hand already starting to sweat in his as he gently pulled me closer. "Because if it's church rules, there needs to be at least a Bible between us."

"There's one in the drawer," Percy said seriously, pointing to my bedside table with his chin.

"I know," I said.

Neither of us made a move for it, though I considered it if only so I could make him laugh again.

But neither of us seemed in the mood for laughing.

Instead, we laced our fingers together, and he placed his other hand stiffly on my waist.

"I'm not a good dancer," he said. In the soft lighting, his cheeks were pink, his eyes bright and unsure. "All boys' school. This was...not encouraged."

"There's not much skill involved here," I said, sliding my fingers up to rest on his shoulder. His arm twitched beneath my hand. "Just swaying."

"I can sway," he said. His right hand curled around to the small of my back.

There was no longer a Bible's width between us.

As a kid in middle school, I'd looked jealously on during these sorts of dances. I'd delighted in the high-spirited line dances, kicking and spinning with my friends, then I'd moved on to the sidelines and watched as, one by one, my friends coupled off with Rudy Wilson and Mike Solero and Chris Penton. They'd stand in the middle of the dance floor, spin-hugging, looking stiff and awkward until a teacher came by to tell them to give each other room to breathe. It looked ridiculous, but I'd wanted so badly to be one of those girls hugging on the dance floor. But no one ever asked me, and I knew that if they did, I'd have had to say no.

Now, there was no one here to police us. I was eighteen years old; I'd kissed one boy (a mistake); I wanted so badly to kiss this one.

Suddenly, the shame and doubt that had followed me around these past days with cymbals crashing had quieted. It was just me, Percy, Amy Grant, and the sound of our breathing in my hotel room.

I melted into him. Chest against chest, warmth against warmth. I rested my cheek against his shoulder. I could hear his heart beating, almost as fast as mine. His breathing was quick and uneven. I pressed my nose to his neck. He rested his chin on my hair.

 _Well,_ I thought to myself, my own stomach knotting like a balloon animal, my heart racing to outpace his, _I guess this answers my question._

The song began to fade out. I reached over to click it off before it could go on to the next--I knew it wouldn't suit the mood.

I pulled away from Percy, just a little. His hands still held me by my upper arms, gently bracketing me in. He was still close enough that I could feel his breath, which was suspiciously Tic Tac-fresh. I took a hold of each end of his bathrobe belt and pulled it tight around his waist, drying my sweaty hands on the terrycloth.

"Well," I said. My face was sizzling. If he came any closer he might spontaneously combust.

I wanted to finish that thought with something pithy. Something that cut to the meat of the ridiculous situation we'd found ourselves in--in our pajamas, in my hotel room at his hotel, swaying around in circles to melodramatic Christian music at two o'clock in the morning.

But I looked into his eyes and I couldn't find the words.

"Well," he whispered back.

I lifted myself on my tiptoes, raised my lips.

He stooped to meet them.

Oh, reader. How can I explain this?

The kiss felt like opening his letter for the first time. It had the same careful expectation, the same curiosity and hesitance. At first, just a brush--like eyes skimming the page to assess who this was and what he wanted from me.

_Dear Becca,_

A guarded opening, leading to assertive words. A patient, attentive hand slipping letters across the page.

I slid my fingers up the edges of his collar, onto his shoulders. Skimmed behind his neck and wove them into his hair.

_My objective is not to win your affection..._

He ran his teeth across my bottom lip. I clutched him tighter in surprise. Someone groaned--him, me, I didn't care. It was impossible to tell. I felt the vibration in every bone of my body. Every hair on my skin.

It was like unfolding the pages. Smoothing them out. Bending close.

_I write this for your sake._

He pulled away, only an inch--forehead to forehead, nose to nose. His eyes searched mine. His breath tickled my tingling lips.

Percy, writing out his history for me, telling me the facts so I could do with them what I would. The vulnerability of his words. The trust.

_I don't expect you to write back._

I burned everywhere. Thought slipped from my brain, replaced with...yes, that was what it was: _lust_. A feeling so powerful, so consuming, that I'd been told lies to make me afraid of it.

I took a hold of one end of his belt. Pulled until it slipped out of the loops.

I wouldn't let him slip away like Julie had let Charlie. There would be no misunderstanding my intentions. No separation for fear of acting on my feelings. No suppression of what I wanted.

 _He_ was what I wanted.

I pushed his bathrobe from his shoulders. I took a hold of the hem of his T-shirt and pulled, tugged it over his head, my hands and breath shaking. His black curls stood on end. His skin glowed, burnished by the light.

_I would be pleased to know that I do not work under false hope that what transpired between us--whatever it was--was fruitless._

He nipped my neck, making me gasp and pull him backwards. Toward the bed, its curtains yawning open.

_So that we may separate as acquaintances..._

His hot hands slipped beneath my sleepshirt. The mattress rose to meet us.

_...if not friends._

And the phone rang.

I pulled back, sat up.

_The phone rang?_

I looked around the room, as though woken from a daze. My bathrobe was on the floor, in a heap with Percy's. His shirt had landed somewhere by the reading chair. The hem of my nightshirt--the puffy kittens no longer a protector of my modesty--had wadded itself in the waistband of my underwear. Outside the window, the distant lights sparkled on the water, but seemed dimmer than before. I realized it had started to rain.

The phone rang again, sharp and insistent.

Percy swore, dove for it--then thought better of it and drew back, lest it be known that a man--and Percy, of all people--was in my room.

"It's two o'clock in the morning," he said to me, his voice thick and deep and perhaps a touch disappointed.

He wasn't alone. My body was both buzzing and thudding at the same time, like a moth throwing itself against a hot light bulb. The knots in my stomach--the ones that had been so exciting, so pleasant--tightened in dread.

_No good news ever arrives at two o'clock in the morning._

I picked up. My breath fogged the mouthpiece. Ghosts of Percy's fingers still lingered on my skin. They made me shiver.

"Hello?" I whispered. I sounded like I had a cold--or like I'd just woken up. _Good._

"Miss Bailey?" a voice said with all the professionalism of a man at a front desk, if a bit frazzled. "Sorry to wake you. I have an urgent phone call from your mother. Should I put her through?"

I nodded. Percy's hand clutched mine and tightened around my fingers.

"Yes," I said.

The phone beeped.

A pause. I caught my breath.

"Mom?" I said.

"BECCA!" The answer was so loud I almost dropped the phone. My mother sounded crazed--her voice grated, rubbed raw. I clutched Percy's hand so tightly I nearly snapped his fingers, panicking that she was watching, had set up cameras. Had she seen us? Could she see us now, our clothes scattered through the room, Percy sitting shirtless on my four-poster bed?

It was none of those things.

"IT'S CYNTHIA," Mom choked, sobbed, her voice so loud and clear that I could have set the phone on my bed and gone to take a shower and I still would have been able to make out every word. "COME. HOME. RIGHT. NOW."


End file.
